


Gauze

by dollmeatpie



Series: Convalescence [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek Hale, Alternate Universe, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Canonical Child Abuse, Consensual Underage Sex, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Fluff, Full Shift Werewolves, Homophobic Language, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Isaac Lahey Feels, M/M, Mating Bond, Minor Original Character(s), Original Mythology, POV Derek Hale, POV Isaac Lahey, Physical Abuse, Possession, Vampires, Werewolves, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2019-07-07 23:59:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 29
Words: 37,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15918876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollmeatpie/pseuds/dollmeatpie
Summary: Derek hadn’t intended to take a mate, but giving Isaac the bite ensures it happens. Now in a lifelong bond with a stranger he’d only sought out to be pack, the Alpha must heal with his heartbroken pup in order to battle an evil far worse than their pasts.





	1. Lethal Teeth

Staining Derek’s mouth was Isaac’s blood-taste and fear. They passed between palate and nose, stuffing his skull with data so primal it felt like the boy had become a part of his body.

“It’ll heal,” Derek said—his seventh time telling him. He didn’t know if repeating himself was for his comfort or Isaac’s, as Isaac hadn’t said much since accepting Derek’s bite.

And there the gift was: stapled to Isaac’s waist. Each of Derek’s teeth had left unique little bleeding shapes, and Isaac, gripping his fleece, was set on inspecting them.

Derek watched, though he wanted Isaac to stop. He wanted to make the words come that ordered to _leave the bite alone_ , but Derek enjoyed that Isaac, already, seemed creature. So he let him. It was new for him. Hell, it was new for Derek. If Isaac sought to explore his pain, that of all things wouldn’t kill him.

This gangly boy was fetched out from a grave. 

He smelled like that, and not just of grass and dense mud, but spicy black pepper, candied ginger, and faint mint, his own scent—one specific smell which kept Derek curious.

“So I just...go home?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s it? I’ll just wake up and—”

“Yes,” Derek repeated. “You go home. You shower. Eat. Nothing’s different yet.”

“Yet.”

Derek stared. When Isaac’s gaze broke, Derek’s swept from Isaac’s face to his wound. “Go home, Isaac,” he said.

 

Isaac knew pain. He knew fear. Just as well had he become acquainted with their scars, both on his body and heart—his heart, especially. That’s why in the shower, as he steamed and soaped himself raw, he allowed the water to seep into his flesh that’d been ripped open.

Regardless of these things, he wasn’t a masochist. Isaac didn’t seek unkind sensations—or small spaces. This shower simply rinsed away the years of Isaac’s weakness and felt good, despite its size and heat pounding down where he hurt.

Two violent punches on the bathroom door halted Isaac’s personal musings. 

“I’m almost—I’m finishing up!” he called over the water. He cursed. Had he raised his voice too much? He’d just wanted the man to hear him, didn’t need him to think he was being defiant by not speaking quickly enough.

“Open the goddamn door!”

So Isaac killed the shower. Getting the suds from his hair had been a rushed operation so his eyes were starting to sting, but his mouth still worked—dry as it was—and, “I’m coming,” he heard himself say. Then he recalled: the visible bite; Derek’s lethal teeth; the way they’d gone into him and the pressure that made them stick.

“Isaac, my God,” his father went on, beating the wood, “my God, you’re making it worse for yourself. You’re making it so bad for yourself, kid. Open—!”

The air whipped in cold. Isaac kept the doorknob in his hand.

“Do you pay for hot water?”

“No, I—I was just getting the soap….”

“Do you pay for hot water?” his father pressed. He closed the space between them. Isaac jerked back into the sink, fist in the towel he had to hold abnormally high up on his waist. “Do you pay for anything in this house?”

Isaac tipped his head. “No.”

“No, what?”

“No, I don’t—I don’t pay for anything. I’m sorry.”

Breath swept over Isaac’s teeth when his father’s hand came up. It went in his hair—not against his face as he’d prepared for—and yanked it so Isaac’s neck was as curved and bent as the rest of his body.

“It’s ‘no, Sir,’ boy.”

“No, Sir.” Isaac batted his eyes against the soap. He repeated his apology, submitting as to hurry this thing along.

While it happened, he longed for a sudden _becoming_ , to be what Derek had promised if only to thrust his father so hard he crashed through the floor.

 

Derek was no stranger to insomnia, though he wouldn’t call it that, being a werewolf. Half of him was nocturnal. The dormant part that looked human, well, it couldn’t sleep if it even imagined it wanted to.

Finding Isaac Lahey was no fluke. The kid didn’t rest at night, either, shifting dirt throughout the blackest hours wolves preferred by nature. Wolves, of course, could scent a body miles from where it stood, and on Isaac, Derek had caught the stench of dysfunction.

Isaac was a troubled, desperate boy, Derek learned along the series of shifts he’d watched him from afar. How someone so young could be harmed by life already was a painful commonality they shared. Dealings with minors wasn’t Derek’s shit, but who was the Alpha wolf if not one to seize an opportunity? A little mess, a minor “rescue”—nothing too dramatic before sealing the bite and sending Isaac to brew.

Derek wanted the brewing to go well. He had no pack nor allies, and he needed this—Isaac—to survive.


	2. A Terrible Human Noise

Mr. Lahey flung his son at a wall. Isaac, crashing into it, absorbed the brunt of the impact through his back.

“Did I raise you to be some faggot?” 

“It’s not—it’s not like that,” Isaac said.

“Let another man bite you. Let him leave marks on you. Is this what I send you to school for? To make a fool of yourself _and me_?”

It went on: the beating; the insults. It had gone too far for Isaac to talk his way out of it, not that talking his way out of it ever yielded fantastic results. He fought to defend himself, protect his face as best he could, his arms a shield as soft as sliced cake.

“I have had it with you, boy. From your grades to this!”

“I’m not—!”

“I am _glad_ your mother was gone before she could see the speck of _shit_ you’ve become.”

He dragged Isaac to it. Isaac reeled from his father, his shirt rising up as he battled the older man off. 

And he shouldn’t have done it.

He knew he shouldn’t have done it.

When a boot came down on his wound, Isaac barked a terrible human noise.

“Give me those,” his father snarled. “Now!”

“I’m trying!”

“You wanna act like an animal. This is what animals get. Mhm. Briefs, too. All of it.”

Isaac’s vision blurred as he was shoved and snatched around, his clothes coming off in multicolored strips. 

Because he was ripping them.

His father was ripping the fabric from his body, beating his ribs and legs when Isaac so much as looked like he was going to flinch. When the room stopped whirling enough for Isaac to see where he stood, the box was several footsteps closer.

Later, after his father had packed him against the floor of the freezer, Isaac was glad that at least the beating had ended. He thought of the bite in these hours. His body still hadn’t healed it. Derek had told him the risks, explained them all from death to the hunters, but was it now worth the grief his father was giving him? Due to his wounds, his prison smelled near to a jar overcrowded with pennies. This was the worst that Isaac had ever been bludgeoned.

Then:

His name.

And it wasn’t his father who said it.

Isaac curled into himself, protecting his cuts; his privates. When the lid squealed open, he squinted to find a face.

“Can you stand?”

_“Isaac? Can you stand?”_

His answer rose on a black bubble of sludge.

Tipping toward the edge of his bed, Isaac proceeded to vomit. The mess’s scent resembled that of licorice.

He assessed himself now. Eyes: damp. Bedroom: wrecked. No freezer. No father. And—a great disappointment—no Derek.

He’d had a nightmare.

But what was a nightmare when in real life, you’d lived it? While it’d been weeks since Isaac was punished by being locked in that freezer, it felt like he’d emerged from it just now.

Ducking off to the bathroom, he found in the mirror his mouth all sticky with blood—or something like that. It didn’t taste like blood, was too sweet to be blood to begin with, but whatever the hell it could be, it clung to his throat.

He spit. Black bubbles trailed toward the drain.

 

It was past midnight when Derek drew Isaac aside.

“Before you get mad,” Isaac began, “I couldn’t come out yesterday.”

“Why?”

“My dad.”

It didn’t matter. Derek had visited Isaac’s house in the two days that passed since he bit him. The sounds from inside left little to be imagined.

He looked Isaac over. The boy seemed frail, like the bite hadn’t boosted his health; his confidence—his anything. Decorating his eye was a many-hued bruise that hadn’t been there when the introductions happened, and, considering Isaac’s new state, it shouldn’t be there now. 

Derek gave them space when Isaac shifted against the tomb, a sheltering structure Derek had ushered his pup to. In its shadows, they would be missed by passing mortals, though Derek knew not many came this late.

“He got really pissed at me and wouldn’t let me leave the house, so….”

“He hit you yesterday?”

Isaac picked at his shirt. “Yeah.”

“Then that should be healed by now. Let me see it.”

“...It?”

“The bite, Isaac.”

A pause. The cemetery buzzed with nocturnal song. Isaac, who loomed two inches over Derek, lifted his shirt for the Alpha wolf to see.

A bandage kissed his waist where the bite had been given.

Tape curled at one defiant corner.

“I covered it,” he explained. “Started to itch.”

“Well, it shouldn’t have. C’mon.” Derek gestured toward the dressing. “Take it off.”

“What? No.”

“Do you want me to do it for you?”

Isaac rolled his eyes but surrendered to the demand, and Derek—tight with concern—peeled it away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your kudos, comments, and overall support! Disaac isn’t a favored ship in the fandom, though that won’t stop this story from being told.
> 
> Are you a Disaac shipper? If not, do you think you’ll become one?


	3. Wholly Invasive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday, Tyler Hoechlin! To celebrate, here’s a tasty new chapter I’m hoping will soothe.

The lair was unimpressive. Cradled by concrete and varying structures of steel, its statement piece was a subway train car.

Derek hung back while Isaac explored, feeling him out just as Isaac was getting to know him through his things. There wasn’t much. The abandoned railroad depot housed utilitarian clutter and its purpose wasn’t geared towards comfort. Nonetheless, Derek made it suit his basic needs.

Isaac would fit in well because he knew pain.

Pain was the reason Derek selected a space like this. Pain had grown his need to be prepared. Derek had suffered enough of it to speak on how it aged you, and while Isaac was young, there was depth in the teenaged boy. For them to present as a force, however, he needed Isaac receptive. The bite hadn’t healed; it may not even take.

Isaac’s scent was already sticking to all that Derek owned, something Derek hadn’t expected himself to be pleased with. A sensation of pack—inceptive as it was in this moment—was one he hadn’t felt since….

“You live here?” Isaac asked.

“For now.”

“Why? I mean...it’s not exactly, you know? Nice? Not that it isn’t nice,” Isaac rushed, “just….”

Derek’s brow curved with mock disapproval. Isaac, rubbing his neck, peering at Derek from under his lashes, looked entirely, helplessly breakable, even with height.

“It’s temporary,” Derek said. “But none of that will matter if you die. Sit.”

Isaac planted himself on the stairs. When Derek disagreed, he moved instead to the nearest wooden crate.

It happened in silence: Isaac getting the shirt off; Derek planting his hands on the crate around Isaac’s legs. Inspection. A gentle wince from Isaac when he was touched.

Derek lifted his seeming permanent scowl. “If something’s wrong,” he prompted.

“I’m not exactly qualified to say.”

“Okay. Let’s start here: what is it like for you?”

“Ugly. And the nightmares….”

“It happens in the beginning to those bitten in.”

“Oh, and there’s this black...stuff. It’s probably nothing but it’s, well...disgusting.”

That caught Derek’s attention. “What black stuff?”

“Kinda threw it all up. I’ll save you some next time, if that’s what you’re into.”

Derek’s hand wrapped Isaac’s nape. He dragged the kid upstairs to a flickering bathroom.

“Show me,” he said.

“Show you. As in, vomit. On cue.”

“Yes.” Derek nodded to the sink, a spark of amusement floating over his eyes. “Show me.”

Isaac flinched when human nails pressed his throat. In the mirror, Derek was robot stiff, watching.

Of course, Derek sensed this wouldn’t get far. It amazed him that Isaac had let him do this much. Still, despite how silly it was, unnatural reactions were cause for concern amongst the newly bitten. At the least, Derek’s nose would catch something of use.

“Alright,” Derek said. “We do it my way.”

“And what way is that, exactly?”

“Relax. And Isaac? Don’t _bite_ me.”

Before Isaac opposed, Derek’s grip on his neck constricted. Isaac’s spit helped Derek’s fingers fall into his mouth, where they pushed to the back of his throat, sinking into him. He gagged beautifully. Derek kept him controlled: firm at the neck; body tense at Isaac’s back so he could rest on his chest if he wanted. Isaac smacked the sink as he coughed around the invasion. When his teeth clamped down, a sound filled Derek’s chest.

“Don’t. Bite,” he said.

Isaac shook his head and grabbed Derek’s wrist to pry his hand away from his mouth. He hacked, dotting the sink with globs of spit.

“I know,” Derek said. “But we have to.”

“Is there a way besides finger fucking my throat?”

“Is there a way besides letting you die and sticking you back in that grave where I found you? Yeah. That’s what I thought. Trust me,” he said, and his hold on Isaac’s neck loosened. “I don’t like it either. Just...try. Help me, and maybe it won’t be so painful. For both of us.”

 

Isaac shook his head. He stared Derek down in the mirror, but his honey-colored curls gentled the threat.

It was strange. It was wrong and wholly invasive. Yet, with all those things, Isaac enjoyed it, and not so much the finger fucking, no, he hated that part, but the goodness of the closeness—the comfort Derek supplied that made him feel safe, despite all this.

“Alright,” Isaac conceded. He stapled both hands to the sink. Derek filled him again, fingers soft against his tongue but still pulling tears.

An eternity of probing bore no muck. In fact, all Isaac gave was lathers of spit. They weren’t foreign or dark and smelled of Isaac’s loud, peppermint toothpaste. 

Derek shifted back to give them some room. In the mirror, Isaac stared when Derek stroked along his beard with the hand that’d been inside Isaac’s mouth.

He was thinking. Perhaps that was why he’d paid no mind to the spit. No, black vomit wasn’t good, werewolf or not. But what if something else was wrong that was human? It wasn’t like his father didn’t beat him whenever he could, punching his growing body; his face.

“It was black. I woke from this nightmare, and it was already in my throat. Like it was waiting for me to wake up so it could come out. And it tasted...it smelled….”

“Like what?” Derek asked.

“Licorice. Yeah. Licorice.”

Derek nodded. Isaac avoided his eyes, though he felt them driving into him, much like the fingers. And more: a soft bulb of warmth expanded his heart, as if the care from Derek was rearranging his organs.

_The care?_

_From Derek?_

Isaac touched his chest where the sensation rooted. He felt Derek shift toward him, saw his shadow spread throughout the room; looming.

“Feel that? That’s pack,” Derek said. “And look:”

He dropped his eyes to the bite, where Derek gazed, or at least where the bite had been on Isaac’s waist.


	4. Patchouli and Sage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t have a set schedule for this fic. I have tried to post at least once weekly, though I haven’t gotten a thing out since the 11th. With that said, I’ve missed it here! In celebration of my favorite season ever, here’s the first chapter of the autumnal equinox.

Now that the bite had healed, this was real for Isaac. Yes, he’d seen Derek’s face and eyes and mouth become something different—and of course, with the transformed teeth, Derek had bit him—but that had nothing to do with his own body’s functions. And now, his body could mend itself supernaturally.

Isaac swept his hand across his brow. In the mirror, he caught the amusement of Derek behind him.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“Watching you sweat? Yeah.” Derek snorted. “Gives me a special, fuzzy feeling inside.”

“Well it’s freaking me out and you’re making it worse.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not natural.”

“It is for me. I was born a werewolf.”

Silence. Isaac visibly softened as he considered what that meant. Knowing such a creature could be born made Isaac wonder what else was roaming out there in the world. He turned on the water, wetting his face and the curls at his brow that sweat had made limp. When he resurfaced, he dried himself with his arm, facing Derek.

“So you were born,” Isaac said. 

“Weren’t you?”

“Like this, I mean.”

“Yes, Isaac. I was born like this, but I wasn’t born an Alpha. That’s something you earn. Something you take.”

“Take?”

Derek’s gaze was hard and Isaac backed off, rubbing his neck. _Something you earn or take? How?_ And could Isaac do that? Become an Alpha? He thought of his father, of how good the power would be when used against him. The spot where the bite had been on his waist began to tingle then, and he touched it, giving a light, careful scratch.

When Derek approached, Isaac backed even more into the sink. “Are you always this timid?” Derek asked. He laid a hand on Isaac’s waist, and Isaac’s eyes blew wide as he watched its veins animate, then turn black.

“What is that?” Isaac asked, half-sitting on the sink from how far he’d scrambled back, away from Derek. The spot Derek touched had been tender underneath, like it hadn’t fully healed inside, but now…. “Why does it feel…?”

“Good?” Derek offered.

Isaac’s temperature rose and it showed in his face.

“We can pull pain with our touch. It doesn’t heal, but it helps with discomfort. Comes in handy,” Derek said, then slid away. The moment was gone as suddenly as it’d come. Isaac replaced Derek’s hand with his own, though the feel of it wasn’t the same.

 

“I don’t cook,” Derek had said, so the lair was scented with grease from the best kind of food.

“I am so dead,” Isaac sang. He shoved half a pizza slice in his mouth. Derek, sitting across from him on the train car floor, did the same with his pepperoni delight.

“You know,” Derek said, “I can get rid of him. Make it look like an animal attack.”

Isaac’s chewing slowed. He looked up to find that Derek’s eyes were fixed on him. Derek gave him a look that said _I know you know what I’m saying,_ then felt a ripple of angst spill over toward him from Isaac.

“Kill him. Kill my dad.”

“Or,” Derek began, “you’ll do it yourself when he hits you again.”

“I don’t—”

“I know. I know. You don’t wanna talk about it. Right? Listen, Isaac. Your body: it does what it wants now. And under that kind of stress—that violent physical contact—it _will_ shift so you can protect yourself.”

Isaac shook his head. He ate his pizza, biting off the crust until it was gone, then started again on a new slice, repeating. Derek let him feast because he knew it was what he needed, both for his belly and the distraction it afforded. The truth, nonetheless, was present. Isaac’s body would do what it wanted without the Alpha’s guidance and he needed to know the threat he was to everyone.

They filled themselves with pizza, sipping soda from their separate two liter jugs. Derek checked the time. It was already late when Isaac got to the cemetery, and they’d been at the lair at least two hours now. “Is your dad expecting you home?” he asked.

“Not really.”

“You do sleep, don’t you? When do you normally leave the cemetery?”

“When I want,” Isaac said in a careful way, avoiding Derek’s attention as he busied himself with his nails. “Sometimes I go home just before school so I only have time to shower.”

“So you don’t sleep.”

“Maybe.”

Derek allowed his face to crease with impatience. The wolf showed at his brow before it was gone. “Why don’t you sleep?”

“Nightmares. I have really...bad nightmares.”

“Then you’ll stay here tonight.”

Isaac looked horrified.

“Does he come check on you at the cemetery?” Derek asked. When Isaac shook his head, Derek said, “Then you’ll stay here and sleep. I’ll drop you off at your house before school.”

 

Derek’s lair smelled very Derek. Before this, when the bite was still raw, he hadn’t noticed the way his senses enhanced. Now, Isaac scented the woods; patchouli and sage.

Because of that, sleep wasn’t as mean to Isaac, though Isaac couldn’t rest with all the excitement alive in his body. He felt new. He felt strong. Most important, he felt safe. Whether Derek, his scent, or the lair provided that for him, he was unsure, but he did know he hadn’t felt this way in years.

There was something else Isaac sensed: their pack bond. It was a living thing when he focused on it, and that would take some time to adjust to. He catalogued other new things: the sound of electricity in the walls; the details in the shadows he’d never seen with human eyes; and each separate taste in the pizza they’d consumed, from the milk from the cheese to the quality of the pork.

Derek moved, distracting Isaac’s musing. They met eyes across the room, and Isaac tightened his hoodie around his middle as he adjusted himself where he’d propped his back on the wall.

“What if he doesn’t have to die?”

Derek crouched in front of Isaac.

“What if,” Isaac continued, “we just found a way to get rid of him? Like if we made him go away somewhere?”

“Like prison?”

“No, not like prison. I mean, isn’t there something else we could do to just make him...go?”

“Do you think if you turn in front of him that he won’t kill you? You think he’d just make you go away somewhere?”

Isaac raked his hands through his hair. Prison wasn’t his first nor favorite idea, but it had been an alternative when Derek suggested killing him. Still, it felt harsh. Isaac’s dad had done some terrible things to the kid, yet he wasn’t in the state of mind to call the cops and watch as they cuffed and carried him off.

Stressed by his lack of solutions, Isaac huffed a sigh. After spending this time with Derek, he wasn’t looking forward to going back home, tiptoeing around his father’s temper. He wanted to eat dinner without expecting to do something wrong. He wanted to fear his basement for a chance encounter with demons instead of the terror that was the freezer and its chains.

“This is gonna sound crazy,” Derek said, “and I can’t believe I’m saying it, myself, but it’s simple. Take me home with you in full wolf form and pretend you’ve rescued a dog.”


	5. These Innocent Games

After school, Derek and Isaac went to a pet store. Isaac left his book bag in the back of Derek’s car, then trotted ahead to catch up with the wolf.

“What’s your favorite color?” Isaac asked.

“Black.”

“That’s unsurprising.”

“It goes with everything. Matches my fur.”

Isaac stopped then. In the center of the aisle, he loomed above collars and leashes, and dog-scents enticed him to run off and play. He steeled himself against it, gave Derek a furtive once-over, then turned to survey the options they had to work with. “Something like...this?” And he grabbed the thick, jet collar nearest him.

Derek’s brow bunched as Isaac approached him. As Isaac stepped forward, the Alpha shifted back, like he knew what Isaac was thinking or planning to do.

“Yeah.” Isaac held the collar up to Derek’s hair. “It does match.”

“Isaac.”

“I think we should try it on. You know; see if it’s comfortable.”

The harder Derek’s expression got, the more amused Isaac felt, and it showed. His wicked little grin got lost behind the tag as his teeth popped the plastic security loops.

“Isaac,” Derek repeated, “if you know what’s best—”

“This is best. C’mon. It’s not like you won’t be wearing it, anyway. Let’s just see how it feels. See if you like it.”

Isaac felt when the change happened. Derek’s pulse kicked and didn’t stop running, and Isaac experienced similar excitement. He edged closer, the collar in both hands now, the hang tag stuffed in his back pocket. With a squeeze, he released the clasp. Derek stared, his gaze defiant as it passed between the black strap, Isaac’s mouth, and Isaac’s eyes.

“I’m gonna kill you.”

“I know.”

“With my teeth.”

“Shhh,” Isaac soothed, and he exhaled a laugh so small and soft it surprised even him that he’d made a sound like that. He stepped away. Folding an arm across his chest and resting the opposite on his wrist, he studied the vision that was Derek, collared, in the center of a pet store aisle.

He couldn’t believe it. Even with Derek staring at him through the slits of his eyelids, this was the most fun Isaac had had in some time. He wet his lips and approached Derek again. As he adjusted the collar on Derek’s neck, he kept his eyes sweetly, timidly low.

“Do you like this?” Isaac asked in a private voice. Derek’s pulse skipped again, and Isaac’s eyes went wide when he realized the way the words came out. “The collar,” he rushed to explain.

“A thinner one,” Derek said with equal haste. “This one’s too wide.”

So, just as quickly as he’d done it, Isaac unsnapped the device, pulled it away from Derek’s throat.

 

Derek rubbed his neck once Isaac turned. He watched the kid drag the tag from his jeans pocket, wrap the collar around it as best he could, for appearances.

After the play—the dialogue—Derek was hot to the touch. He knew that with some training, with guidance on what to look for, Isaac would pick up his scent, but for now, he was safe. There was no need to make this more than it was.

He trailed behind Isaac now, his own senses expanding as a predatory urge insisted he stalk his playful beta. This was...good. Derek hadn’t had these innocent games with anyone since before the Hale House was burned. He’d forgotten how to do this and how to allow it of others. Now, Isaac was here, he was real, and this thing felt nice to Derek, which felt odd.

He’d chosen well.

Derek’s chest tightened when he allowed himself to admit it. Isaac had, at first, been a choice of mere strategy, a target in need and also—conveniently—vulnerable. He was a kid. A kid which Derek had five or six solid years on. Someone that young with so many issues would accept the bite like a treat, which Isaac did, which Derek had hoped for and now, in this store, was enjoying.

“How about this?”

Isaac turned around with a black, braided collar. It had gold hardware: loops for the leash and tag; the spring snap.

“It’s fashionable,” Derek said, “but you’re still dead.”

That earned Derek a grin, and Isaac pressed even closer now, securing the collar around Derek’s strong neck and rotating it as to get the best view. A man passed them by with his rottweiler. At the appearance of what was going on, he shook his head and muttered. Isaac tensed, not just visibly, but in his mood. Derek flashed red eyes at the dog. It bolted and its owner chased the trailing, chain leash.

“How’s it look?” Derek asked, an attempt to reel Isaac back in.

“It’s….”

Isaac was shifting around now, his hand rubbing his nape, tugging his curls. Derek studied him with flagrant concern. Was it what the man said? Had Isaac picked up on his energy; his scent? His animal instincts would grow, naturally, with time, but he could be feeling things even without the tools to understand them.

“It’s pretty,” Isaac finally said. “I like it. Do you like it?” And he met Derek’s eyes, finally, and Derek thawed.

“You’re pretty. This? This is for pets. I’m a wolf. It needs stretch.”

Isaac took it off, then found something else.

 

They’d filled their small basket: a black break-away collar with gold hardware; a long chain leash, because Derek liked those; bowls for the appearance of feeding; and a few cans of name brand food. It was on their way to check-out that they passed a row of treats, where Isaac paused, his attention captured by colors.

“Are any of these something you think you’d like?”

“Maybe when I kill you, I’ll use the claws, too.”

Isaac wasn’t affected. This felt good to him. Derek felt good to him. If they could, he’d like to stay longer, but he had to get home, eat, and then later, head to the cemetery, which he actually needed to work at this time. He tried not to think much about it. They had this plan, and it was a good one, but it still made Isaac’s stomach tight to imagine how it’d go when he told his father.

“Think they’re any good?” Derek asked. He felt it then, too: the bond between him. Or was it affection? Were the bond feelings and affectionate feelings the same for their kind? He’d have to ask, and he needed to know, because now, when he was with Derek in a place like this full of strangers, he felt _completely_ Derek’s and beautifully safe.

Isaac at last spoke. “They smell good,” he said. His cheeks were hot, and the lamps above the treats enhaloed his face so that his high cheekbones and sharp jaw were just as displayed. “Wonder what they taste like.”

“Eat one,” Derek said.

“You’re crazy.”

“It’s harmless. Here; give me the basket.” And Derek relieved Isaac of it, setting it on the floor by their feet.

Isaac laughed. Raising his hands in surrender, he moved to step away, but Derek’s hand clamped the back of his neck as if he’d expected it.

“That looks good.” Derek pointed to the faux macaroons. When Isaac made a face, Derek allowed his grin to widen. His thumb stroked the vein in Isaac’s neck, pressing gently. “No? Then that. It’s like a cookie.”

“I don’t think dog treats should be like cakes.”

“Oh? But they were good enough for me?”

“No,” Isaac laughed out, head shaking. He was pinkening by the second. “I’m saying, they should be like meat. Some sort of jerky.”

A pause. Derek, having made a decision, shrugged and reached for a….

“Close your eyes,” he told the beta.

“I…?”

“Do you trust me?”

Isaac gave it some thought. Stranger or not, this was, after all, a man who gave him something special. And while it was only nearing a week since, Derek didn’t feel much like a stranger to him.

Not now.

“Yeah,” Isaac said. He decided he meant it, and it felt good to say.

“Close your eyes.”

Isaac tensed, though he did as told. The scents came next: rich, warm peanut butter, then bacon. Good bacon. Luxury bacon. His mouth got very wet.

“Can you smell it?” Derek asked, though Isaac imagined he knew the answer. When he nodded, Derek added, “Describe it to me.”

“Peanut butter. And bacon. And...milk.”

“See? Trust.”

“It smells _really_ good.”

“You’re about to see if it tastes equally good. Open.”

 

Isaac was laughing, and to Derek, he looked even younger than the display lights had painted him. He kept his hand on Isaac’s neck. The last time it’d been there was back in Derek’s bathroom, holding him still so he could explore his mouth.

He cleared his throat as if freeing it of the thought, the memory. When Isaac parted his lips to let the small treat inside, Derek pushed it in, trying his best not to penetrate him and return to that night in the lair.

“Chew,” he coached. He bit back his laugh. The faces Isaac made while he battled his way through were enough to send him cackling on the floor. Derek didn’t cackle on the floor, though. Maybe later, in private, when they were alone.

“I can’t believe you made me do that.”

“Bag some,” Derek said, noticing the eyes on them and not wanting Isaac to see.

Out in the car, after Derek purchased the items and Isaac worked them into his backpack, Derek stuck the keys in the ignition, but didn’t turn them.

“What’s wrong?” Isaac asked.

“That man back there. The one who upset you.”

“Oh….”

“Older men are a trigger for you. Aren’t they?”

Isaac shrugged.

“Let me help you, Isaac. I’ll be in your house, around your father. It’s about to get very, painfully personal between us and I need to know how to handle this. And you.”

“And me,” Isaac mused, playing with the drawstring of his hoodie. “I dunno how to say it.”

“Try.”

“He locks me in a freezer. To punish me. It’s in our basement,” Isaac spat out, “and it has chains on it so I...so I can’t get out.”

Derek hardened then. He looked out the window. The moon would be full in two days. “He won’t do it again.”

Isaac watched as Derek started the car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I enjoyed writing this chapter so much, which made me happy, as this week has been rough for me health-wise. Derek and Isaac have such a tender dynamic in this fic. I at first had intended on making Derek so inaccessible in the beginning, but in letting the characters do what they want to do, I found that he enjoys this, and Isaac, a lot.
> 
> Who else is nervous about them bringing “the dog” home to Mr. Lahey?


	6. Passenger Seat

“I don’t want to,” Isaac said. “I don’t think we should do it.”

Derek killed the engine and looked out the windshield toward Isaac’s home. Isaac wasn’t paying much attention to that, though. Bouncing his leg, ripping his nails from the meat with his teeth, he was focused instead on the bad way this could go.

“Derek.”

“I’m thinking.”

That didn’t help Isaac’s state.

“He could hurt you,” Isaac said, “while you’re a dog. A wolf,” he then amended, seeing the edge of disapproval already tugging Derek’s face. “Derek, please.”

“We have to.”

_“Derek.”_

Isaac searched Derek’s face as he reacted to his name. It’d come out of Isaac with such pain, and Isaac felt the way it went into Derek, how their pack bond flared as though it’d been slashed. Isaac’s eyes were wet now. He tightened his jaw, not wanting Derek to see him weak—not wanting his Alpha to see him so pathetic. But the scent had come off him, paired with the tie that bound them together as pack. It couldn’t be escaped. Choking, he curled into himself, distanced himself from Derek as much as he could in the passenger seat.

“I don’t want you to come in.” Tears weighed his words to the ground. “I don’t want you to see it.”

“I’m going to come in.”

_“Derek.”_

“And I’m going to see it. And make it stop.”

Isaac’s breath caught, hitching in his chest. When Derek’s weight shifted at the opposite end of the car, the younger wolf buried himself in his jacket.

It went on like that, with Isaac controlling his sobs in the fleece of his hoodie and Derek, closer than before but still not touching Isaac, watching him. Isaac said little broken things he doubted Derek could understand, as he was speaking more to himself, anyway.

It was a stupid idea. To imagine his father would ever allow a pet in the house had been a fantasy. And even if he did, would he beat it, too? _Would Derek bite him?_ Pictures of these things ran like film throughout his skull. It could go wrong. It could go far from wrong toward deadly.

Or did Derek want that?

“Isaac. I know you’re scared.”

“Just...stop….”

“I can’t,” Derek said, “and you know I can’t.”

“Let’s just not do it, Derek. _Please._ ”

“Remember what you said back there? When I asked you if you trusted me? What did you say?”

Isaac’s body rocked with another sob. At his side, he felt the heat from Derek’s body grow nearer. He felt him edging toward him, could sense his shadow expand across the car. He swallowed. Derek was a good amount closer than before, and he smelled like so many trees and wild leaves.

“I….”

Derek waited.

“I said I did.”

“You did? Or you still do?”

“...I don’t know.”

“And that’s fine. You don’t have to figure that out right now. All we need is to get me in that house, do it exactly how we planned. No one’s gonna get hurt.”

 

Derek wanted to be as patient as Isaac needed, but factors were against them which put pressure on their time. Isaac hadn’t slept. He needed food—they both did. He had homework, and he also had work at the cemetery.

Minutes later, when Isaac still hadn’t responded, Derek laid his hand on the beta’s back. “No one’s gonna get hurt,” he repeated. Isaac incrementally softened at those words, though his long body remained curled in the seat.

That was when Derek saw them: twin, yellow lights reflecting in the window, showing up, perhaps, once Isaac opened his eyes.

He stared.

Isaac _was_ a werewolf.

Derek hadn’t doubted it before. He didn’t know why it pleased him so much now. But seeing the lights fade as Isaac’s eyes fell sleepily closed did a primal, protective thing to Derek’s body.

His hand traced Isaac’s back. When his fingers curled in the hood, Isaac winced. Derek said things like, “I won’t hurt you,” and, “It’s just us here,” drawing the hood away from Isaac’s curls.

It was slow. Each revealed inch of Isaac’s head made Derek hungry. He blinked his eyes red, a reaction to the tears, seeing his new pup all the clearer.

And he couldn’t keep himself from touching his hair, so he did it. And Isaac became more gentle. And Derek continued to soothe Isaac’s scalp.

Isaac’s voice was small. “I don’t like the idea. I don’t like it.”

“Okay.”

“We don’t have to do it?”

“We don’t have to do it.”

Isaac was quiet. Finally, he said, “Promise me.”

“I promise you. We’ll come up with something else. Something you’re comfortable with.”

Derek shifted back when Isaac unfolded in his seat, so much that they exchanged their former places. Now, it was Derek who backed to the farthest cushioned corner, and Isaac, the light in his eyes, crossed the console. Derek watched in silence. He didn’t mention the way Isaac’s eyes glowed as not to startle him out of the moment, wanting his beta to follow his instincts, as well as develop them.

Isaac touched his nose to Derek’s throat. He moved up, scenting the back of his ear as well. Derek didn’t breathe. His fingers curled so the nails kissed his palms, and his heart, as if frozen by its own, dark cravings, felt clamped in his chest by the weight of his appetite.

He let Isaac do it: drag his nose across Derek’s cheek, his lips close to Derek’s mouth; nuzzle his way under Derek’s chin; use his nose to draw a path down Derek’s chest until he stopped between his pecs, pressing his ear for an indeterminable time. Derek shut his eyes and extinguished their glow. There were plenty of places to smell along the bottom half of the body, and if Isaac would like to move lower, he was afraid he’d let him do it.

 

Isaac felt that special kind of drowsy that mirrored a high. He pulled back, the music from Derek’s heart still in his ear as he settled himself in the heated passenger seat.

“You feel it,” Derek said. It was his turn, again, to shift closer. “You feel the moon; already.”

Looking out the window at the white globe in the sky, Isaac tried to ignore the change in Derek’s voice. “You said it wasn’t full for two days.”

“It’s not. When you’re born a wolf, like me, you grow up with a relationship to the moon, a sensitivity. When you’re bitten….”

“So I’m not supposed to feel it. Until Sunday.”

Isaac looked to Derek now. His eyes were tender from crying. Through them, the Alpha looked different—softer—even though his scruff did well to sharpen him up.

Feeling suddenly shy, Isaac began to inspect what he’d done to his nails. The skin was raw and pink, and the pink was closer to crimson in some places. There was more: he smelled blood. If he could smell it, Derek could, too, which didn’t help the bashfulness Isaac displayed.

“Let me see,” Derek said, and took Isaac’s hand.

“Don’t—it hurts.”

“What if I had a way to make it not hurt?”

Isaac’s face, warm and soft as it was, bunched innocently with confusion.

“Would you let me?”

“Yeah,” Isaac consented. Then he watched as Derek’s tongue dragged over his fingers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And what do we think about that?
> 
> Also, you may have noticed a new tag: Original Mythology. It can’t be helped, and it won’t overwhelm the story, but I’ve got some things (and creatures?) in store for these two.
> 
> Wow. Is that three chaps in one week?


	7. That Box

Isaac’s hands smelled like Derek’s mouth. At dinner, as he sat across from his father, stabbing potatoes, he often scrubbed his nose to revisit the scent.

“Boy, you sick or something?”

“Weather’s changing, so….”

Mr. Lahey lifted his glass. Isaac heard the distinct way water traveled his throat. “How was the cemetery?”

“Fine,” Isaac said. “Uneventful.”

 _The cemetery._ Isaac couldn’t say an honest thing about the place, being with Derek all of the night and afternoon. He swallowed his food. Avoiding his father’s eyes, he brainstormed more of the lie to cover himself.

“Yeah, well, I went past there this morning and….” His father laid down his utensils. “How was the cemetery?”

Isaac’s belly constricted around what little food he’d had. “Uneventful,” he repeated, lifting his gaze.

“The backhoe hadn’t been moved.”

“Didn’t need it.”

“So.” His father gestured with his hands. “What did you do?”

 _Laid sod. Cut grass,_ Isaac wanted to say, but since he didn’t know the extent of what his father had seen, he decided not to tell specific stories. Instead, he also laid down his utensils, fork and knife clinging together brightly.

“I haven’t been sleeping. I fell asleep and I’m...sorry. I was going right there after dinner.”

Then he’d see Derek again. And maybe he’d taste him this time, trapping Derek’s scent in his mouth; his belly. Heat snaked beneath Isaac’s skin. He watched his dad react in his cold, quiet way as he pushed his dishes back, ignoring Isaac.

It was coming. Perhaps his father would throw something other than fists, and maybe the freezer would cage him, make him feel small. He thought of Derek again, lupine and warm. Regret pricked like many hornet stings.

“We didn’t have any grave orders,” Isaac explained, “and nothing is behind. All I have to do—”

_“‘All I have to do’?”_

They both rose from their seats, Isaac following shortly after his father.

 _“‘All I have to do’?”_ Mr. Lahey repeated.

“I fell asleep,” Isaac said. “You can—just don’t pay me for last night. I’ll make it up tonight, stay all night for it.”

“You know how many kids your age wish they had an opportunity like you?”

Isaac shifted.

“Speak!”

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, shut up. Always sorry. Always full of remorse. I’ve gotten too lenient, letting you float around here, coming and going.”

“So I mess up one time at work, when we don’t even have a scheduled burial, and this...I don’t even get—?”

“Oh, you’re getting something.” And he was on Isaac, yanking him. “I knew a break from that box would be too good.”

_That box._

“Too good,” his father was repeating, mumbling curses; promises; threats.

_That box._

Isaac’s clothes stretched in the older man’s hand. He tensed, the strength in his new body pinning him still, _that box_ a creature tumbling in his gut.

“Boy—”

“I’m not going back in there,” Isaac said. “I’m not—I won’t.”

A fist split Isaac’s lip twice.

 

It was late. Isaac was supposed to have left home for work hours ago, bike up the road a few blocks, then pack it—and himself—in Derek’s ride. But Isaac hadn’t come out, and Derek knew he hadn’t come out, since he didn’t leave Isaac’s street when they’d parted.

He propped his arm in the window sill and rubbed his mouth with his fist.

_“Do you like this?”_

_“You’re pretty. This? This is for pets.”_

Promising not to come in had been a grave and ugly mistake, but Isaac had begged, and his tears were just as sweet. All the more so, he wanted to protect Isaac—needed to, even. Derek had had time to think on what this thing between them could be. At the root of it all, it wasn’t just _pack_. He wasn’t solely protective of Isaac because he was Isaac’s Alpha. Yet, he’d let Isaac go and watched him leave.

He clenched his jaw, hand flinching again toward the handle. But what would he do if he got out, knocked on their door? How would he explain it? Or would he say nothing, simply force himself inside? If he sensed Isaac’s distress….

Derek lifted his back away from the seat, honing his senses. Night sounds glimmered in his ears. His nose was open to asphalt and dew, and in the distance, cats argued in hisses. He couldn’t sense the problem in a clean, complete way, yet he knew that something was wrong, could feel it biting him.

 _“Close your eyes,”_ Derek had said. _“Do you trust me?”_

 

Isaac opened his eyes. He quivered as chains clanked and the freezer door opened, though he hadn’t been cold in his confines through the night.

It was done. A hand, large and male, dragged him up. 

“Come on,” his father grunted, as if Isaac had the faculties to help but was withholding. When Isaac’s feet smacked the floor, a chill took him over. Every ache in his body woke with that shock.

“There’s some cornbread and bacon in the fridge,” his father was saying, and later, “I’ll be at the cemetery if you need me.”

Like this was normal.

Like nothing had happened.

And then he just left him, climbing the basement stairs to get on with his day.

 _Cornbread and bacon._ Isaac tamed his groan, bracing himself against the freezer. He’d spent the entire night crunched in that thing.


	8. Plum-colored Spots

Not that he’d slept if he wanted to, Derek stayed awake through the night. Now, in his car which smelled increasingly of wolf, he watched as Mr. Lahey left the house.

He waited. Knowing the way life went—forgotten lunch, perhaps?—the guy could circle back, catch him in transit. He had to be sure he was gone, and Isaac needed the same to let him in.

Derek rehearsed what he would say to his pup. “Let me make it right,” and, “He’s done hurting you” were nice, but he’d already told him things similar. What good had they done? What pain did they intercept? It was Saturday. He couldn’t imagine what’d happened to Isaac last night. Would calling the cops have been best? CPS? Derek considered those options, though he sensed that their involvement was the last of Isaac’s needs.

Jaw clenched, he took the brief walk to Isaac’s house.

 

Isaac ate the bacon cold. He didn’t bother with the cornbread, his taste for meat so intense—his need to eat so dire—and he tore into leftover steak with the same blind rage used for the pork.

It hurt him, however; eating. His split lips hadn’t healed, nor had his many other bruises. Much of his upper body was speckled with plum-colored spots, and his limbs ached from the way he’d been forced to sleep.

Not that he’d gotten much sleep.

Not that he hadn’t thought of Derek through the night, imagined Derek setting him free. He’d done it in Isaac’s dream. In his fantasies, it was no different. Only there, in the safe dark of his mind, Derek shred his father to death and ate him.

 _Why didn’t you come for me?_ he wanted to ask. That was his biggest wound until recalling that he’d begged Derek not to.

In these moments between all his chewing and blaming and aching, Isaac sensed someone up against his front door.

 

Derek didn’t wait. Once the door cracked, he maneuvered himself inside with the amount of care his urgency allowed.

They met eyes, and Isaac shifted his weight in his nervous way. Derek looked him over, surveying all he could before shutting the door, locking it. He could all but taste in the air what the young wolf was going through. Intimidations would make this worse, so Derek chose his words—and movements—smartly.

“It’s my fault,” Isaac said, beating him to it. “I ditched work, I fucked up.”

“Isaac—”

“I fucked up. And I’m not healing.”

That made Derek want to get nearer to Isaac. He’d already scented the blood, though part was from whatever Isaac had eaten. Nonetheless, Derek could distinguish which scents belonged to whom, and he knew when he’d come in that Isaac was hurt. He flexed his hands and dared to take a step closer. When Isaac didn’t move, he tried some words.

“I never left. I waited for you all night, I was just outside.”

Isaac shut his eyes then, like that broke him. He turned to press his forehead to the wall.

“It’s not your fault,” Derek continued. “But I’m here now. The full moon’s tomorrow. I can’t leave you alone through it, so you have to choose:”

A choice.

The horror of it.

Isaac’s eyes blew suddenly, frantically wide.

“Leave with me. Right now.”

“Or…?”

“Or your father will hear you become a beast his own height.”

_“What?”_

“You’re like me, Isaac. We don’t—we do it differently.”

Isaac repeated the word, it spilling out from his mouth like lava. “How?” he demanded. “How is it different?”

“Come with me and I’ll tell you. I’ll show you.”

In a moment that came and went in a bold flash, Isaac’s cool eyes went wolf.

“Isaac. You’re already changing. I’m not just an Alpha, I’m an Alpha with the advantages of a pureblood. My bite...a bite from someone like me, someone born into it, it….”

“But what are you saying, Derek? A beast?”

“Yes.”

“My—my father’s height?”

“Yes.”

“But I thought I would be like, still me,” Isaac said. “Me, but with the teeth and hair. You never said….”

“I know.”

“You never said it would be like _that_.”

“I never said it’d be the other way, either. I didn’t know. I still don’t know. There’s always a chance, and yeah, maybe tomorrow you’ll be more man than wolf and it won’t be bad for you. You won’t have to take a full-body shift. But—”

“But if it is bad? How do we know, _before_ tomorrow?”

“We don’t. And I’m not willing to take that chance.”

 

Isaac returned to the kitchen to clean up his mess. He felt Derek hovering just as much as he did the aches throughout his body. He was bothered. And it wasn’t just Derek’s news that did it. He couldn’t heal on his own and it felt good to have Derek close, in his house, where all current things were conflicting. Isaac didn’t dare look at Derek. If he did, he feared the wolf would know his secret thoughts: that he craved for Derek to fill his mouth and choke him.

Done with the work, Isaac turned, tugging at his hair. “I need to pack some things,” he said, flicking his gaze at everything except Derek. Derek pushed from the counter, ready to follow.

In his room, Isaac slipped deeper into his emotions. Did he want Derek’s protection? Affection? Did he want him to leave and take his cursed gift with him? Or was it comfort, a desire for something soft, something innocent? Isaac chanced a peek as his Alpha toured his space, a slick and sudden warmth coiled in his gut.

“I don’t hear you packing,” Derek said. His back was turned to Isaac, but Isaac knew his face was tight as steel.

Isaac prepared for tomorrow. It was unfortunate that his first shift fell on a Sunday night, and with school the following morning, he thought about taking more, just in case. Derek, after a time, sat at his desk while he waited. Isaac caught the wolf’s eyes tracking him every so often.

 

Between wolves, scent communication was paramount. So when Derek had inhaled Isaac’s arousal in the kitchen, he knew this would be a hard day.

“Finished?” he asked, since Isaac looked done with packing. But Isaac didn’t answer. He lingered, like the words were piling up in his mouth to be sorted.

Derek got up, went to Isaac. His hand rested on the boy’s shoulder.

“You okay?”

“Will it hurt?”

“Yes,” Derek said. “But it gets...easier.”

Isaac shifted away, forcing Derek’s hand to fall.

“I’ll get you through it.”

“You should’ve told me. You—how could you just not say?”

Derek wanted to argue that he was new at this, too. He’d grown up around purebloods. There had been no examples of these things in his childhood, since everyone shifted at puberty and it was fluid. The Alphas in his family hadn’t bitten humans to keep a low profile amongst hunters. Now, he was forced to do this just as blindly as Isaac. His confidence, for a moment, began to falter.

Deciding to change the subject, Derek again closed the space between them. He tugged Isaac’s shirt.

“Can I see what he did?” he asked.

“It’s...it’s ugly.”

Derek returned to the chair at Isaac’s desk. Lifting it, he walked back to Isaac and set it down, holding Isaac’s eyes as he dropped in the seat.

“Show me.”

Isaac pinked. He laughed, shaking his head when Derek tugged the shirt again, his long fingers gentle at the hem.

“Take it off….”

So Isaac did it. And Derek saw the bruises. And the blush climbed from Isaac’s neck to his brow.

 

“Why won’t they heal?”

Isaac searched for answers in Derek’s expression, though Derek was so involved with the task that it seemed he hadn’t heard him. Just the same, Isaac was only speaking for a distraction. With Derek touching him, pulling pain and passing strength across their bond, it’d become difficult to care.

“It’s in your mind,” Derek said.

“I don’t get what that means.”

Isaac didn’t look away when Derek lifted his gaze. He wet his lips, tasting traces of licorice.

“You will,” Derek said. “For now, don’t think about him. Think about me. Think about this.”

Isaac’s breath caught. He wanted to turn his head—break the eye contact—but he sank, quick and deep, in Derek’s gaze.

“Feel my hands,” Derek continued. “Feel the bond, the moon.”

Feeling them couldn’t be helped. Combined, they were such warm, intoxicating gifts, stripping his fear and reeling him back from the world of tomorrow.

Derek’s hands were wrapped around his waist, and Isaac couldn’t help but want to know what Derek felt. Was it like this for him? Was this—whatever it was—erotic? They released one another’s eyes. Derek went on petting him, drawing away the discomfort, brushing his thumbs along the edges of bruises. 

Isaac opened his mouth, unable to take it. “Derek,” he began. “Do you like me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so deep in this ship! And look! Original myth magick is filtering in—gahhh!


	9. Tender Meat

Derek needed to know it himself: did he _like_ Isaac? Did he like Isaac how Isaac imagined, and did Isaac want that or was he just curious? Derek’s touch traveled Isaac’s arm down to his hand, where he spread the beta’s fingers, then checked his nails. The answering words were halfway up his throat when he heard a car pull up and wreck the conversation that could’ve been.

Isaac, hearing it too, left Derek to look out the window. The horror that surged from his body confirmed Derek’s thoughts.

“He’s back,” Isaac said, and Derek got up. He looked to the bag Isaac packed, hoping Isaac truly did have all he needed. It would have to do. Mr. Lahey was already at the door, and before Isaac turned, the wood creaked as it opened.

“Out the window,” Derek said.

“It doesn’t—they don’t open.”

“What?”

“Isaac!” Mr. Lahey called from below.

“They’re bolted shut,” Isaac explained in soft, rushed words. “I snuck out one night, and I...it was punishment.”

“Isaac!”

Derek was testing the windows. He could, with ease, pop them both. But with Mr. Lahey already climbing the stairs—and Isaac’s feet only covered in socks—there wasn’t enough time to do it safely.

Now, carrying on outside the bedroom, Isaac’s father promised terrible things. Derek looked from the door to Isaac to, at last, the closet, and on swift feet, ushered them there.

 

It happened too fast for Isaac to protest Derek’s plan, but even if he’d had time, nothing would change.

His father had entered the room.

His father was already pissed, and he hated even the hint of “faggish activity.” Isaac couldn’t be caught with Derek behind a shut door, and the closet was all they had to ensconce them. Still, no matter how safe it appeared to make them, it was dark, and it was tight, so much that Derek was pressed close behind him. To make it worse—or better, had this been different—Derek was folding his hand across Isaac’s mouth.

Isaac shut his eyes. He knew that just as he honed in on his father’s footsteps, Derek was doing the same, if not better. He also knew that drilling his focus toward something external wouldn’t distract him enough from the space closing around them. This was real, and his fear was harsh and it made him smell so frightened. If his father’s nose worked as theirs did, they would be—

“Damned boy….” Mr. Lahey was saying on his way out, with more ugly words spewed in the hall. Isaac heard the footsteps dragging through the other bedroom, where his father dumped his body on the bed.

 _“No.”_ Derek’s voice, rough at his ear. “Not yet.”

“I have to get out of here.”

“Isaac.”

“It’s too _small_.”

 

Derek remembered the freezer. Every cramped space must have reminded him of that hell. Still, they couldn’t leave, not with the menace in the house, and neither of them knew how long he’d stay.

Dragging them down to the floor, Derek sat with his back to the wall. “Let me,” he said as Isaac stiffened. “Isaac. Stop.” And he wrestled his pup in silence until a short time later, Isaac’s back was pressed against Derek’s chest.

“I think he’s gone,” Isaac said not even two minutes later. He moved to peel from his Alpha, though Derek disallowed the separation. “Derek. I said—”

Isaac was making noise enough for them both, so Derek didn’t open his mouth again. Instead, he returned his palm to Isaac’s flapping lips. Isaac’s back arched from Derek’s chest.

They were stuck like that. Isaac fought, though he did it gently as to keep from making sounds that’d call attention. For their ears, however, there was enough to wake the house. Derek knew well that he had to end it.

He bared his teeth against Isaac’s throat. A warning. Isaac stilled just some, his elongated nails doing their best work of shredding Derek’s jeans. Derek wanted to drive his teeth into him then, part for the damage, but mostly because he needed to conquer and bleed. The more Isaac struggled in his soft, defiant way, the greater Derek’s hunger became.

 

Against Isaac’s neck, Derek’s mouth was a warm but affectionate threat. He found himself both pressing into the teeth that could fatally tear him and flinching away with short, fearful breaths.

They froze when they heard his father get up and return to Isaac’s room. They listened as he searched through Isaac’s things. Now, between Derek’s legs, pinned against his chest, Isaac was the most silent he’d been since they got there. Regardless, there were distractions: Derek’s scruff at his throat, his shoulder; the arm Derek had locked around Isaac’s waist; the hand Derek pressed on Isaac’s mouth; and Isaac’s teeth, which scraped Derek’s palm.

The footsteps neared the door. Isaac shut his eyes, squeezing out tears. His canines, bottom and top, sank well into Derek’s hand, and the blood spilled freely on them both.

Around him, Derek tensed. As young as Isaac was in both his age and experience, a bite was still a bite, and bites hurt. He imagined Derek’s jaw clenched, his eyes a wild red as he swallowed back a stress-relieving curse. Isaac released him at once. The guilt of what he’d done eclipsed his fear of all they faced. A broken animal sound left his body.

Several things happened to drag out that noise, beginning with Derek’s own teeth plunged into his shoulder, which led to Mr. Lahey snatching the door. And so he found them like that, these glow-eyed, blood-stained boys, and Derek loosed a horrible, rumbling roar.

 

Mr. Lahey staggered. He spent a good while choking it all down before he bolted, leaving the room; the floor; the house.

Derek tossed Isaac his shoes. “Do it fast,” he spat out, his voice so thick with the wolf that he saw Isaac flinch. As Isaac covered his feet, Derek watched beyond the window. His father unloaded a thing from his vehicle’s trunk.

Isaac lurched forth as Derek shoved him toward the door, the bag in Derek’s hand, his mouth sharp with teeth. Derek barked things at Isaac about another exit, which they reached just as Mr. Lahey returned.

They ran.

Two alleys and three streets later, they penetrated the woods nearby. When Isaac threw himself into a tree, Derek reached, pulling him back, dropping the bag to better contain him.

“What were you thinking?”

“You _bit_ me!” Isaac barked.

“To _subdue_ you. To keep you from doing exactly what you did: get us caught.”

Isaac scoffed.

“What were you thinking?” Derek repeated. But before Isaac could answer, tell him why he put his teeth in Derek at all, Isaac clutched his middle, moaned, and bowed over.

Derek crouched beside him. He called Isaac’s name, though the crunch of shifting bones blocked out his voice, he knew. And he knew what Isaac was feeling; what he thought. And he knew this wasn’t the time for this happen.

“Not here, Isaac.”

_“Derek—”_

“I know. You’re okay. Not yet; not here.” Which went on, Derek explaining all they’d risk if this were to happen. “You’re okay,” he was repeating as he gripped Isaac’s shirt, splitting it to expose the skin beneath.

 

The chilled, morning breeze on his back didn’t help. Isaac continued to writhe and curl and howl into the earth, and he felt it all. He felt like he would die.

“You’re okay,” he heard Derek say once more, but the Alpha’s voice was distant, like Isaac’s ears were shutting everything out. Something odd and uncomfortable was happening to his toes. His mouth—sticky with blood—began to crack. But he still tasted _Derek_. He still felt his hand at his lips; the tender meat of his palm; the salt. There’d been surprising pleasure when his canines went in. Was this what was in store from being turned?

Isaac plowed his hands into the ground. He heard the sounds he was making, these troubled, hybrid sobs neither man nor beast. Derek was still there, though he couldn’t see him, nor the trees. There was only sound and sensation. Nothing else made much sense.

Then, with the same dominant force there’d been in the closet, a sharp, reaching pain stabbed his arm.

His sight shot back into his face like his eyes had been vacuumed from the sky by their sockets. He saw Derek holding his arm. Like it was the night they met, a large, dripping shape was on Isaac’s skin, marking him.

“We have to go,” Derek said, getting him up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel this full moon as much as Isaac is feeling the fictional one approaching in this story. Who else is on edge today? And what do we think of all the things? Remember: this is still Saturday and Isaac was _not_ supposed to turn until Sunday. So it's not over. Not at all.
> 
> Also, thank you so much for your patience in these weeks I haven't posted! Much love to you all. I'm already working on chapter 10 and whew! Keep close!


	10. Increasingly Creature

After the grueling hobble back toward Derek’s car, the pair endured their brief drive in silence. Derek pulled in a lot and left without an explanation, and Isaac began to wonder what would come.

He cracked his window. The air felt good, and it was seasoned with beef and fry grease. Spit threatened to spill from the corners of his lips. He swallowed a moan that pressed the back of his throat.

What had he done?

Why had he bitten Derek, and why had Derek bitten him—twice—and why did his father have to know? And what did it mean that he knew? And, Isaac thought, _Does he hate me for real now?_

Derek stabbing into him.

The sound Isaac made.

Mr. Lahey finding them in the closet.

_Derek taste._

_Derek hands._

_Delicious Derek smell._

Isaac dug his palm into his belly. His eyes were yellow, flickering in the passenger side mirror. If Derek didn’t come back, he wasn’t sure how he’d contain this. His body was tight and his thoughts were increasingly creature.

When Derek did return, Isaac had already tugged off his shirt. Ripped bit of fabric it now was, it hadn’t done much for him to begin with, and at this point, the car was cloaked with its sweat-stained scent. Derek set the food down between them. In the quiet, he stabbed a plastic straw through a lid.

“Slowly,” the Alpha stressed. He tilted the cup toward Isaac, and Isaac, leaning in, latched with his teeth.

The initial shock of the cold confused his brain. Through the lid, he saw a clear drink and had expected it to give the bite of soda. Instead, he was met with water. The mild disappointment didn’t last, what with the satisfying way it slaked his thirst, but water and burgers and fries didn’t marry well in his vision, and a desperate need for Sprite claimed his mouth.

“I said slow.”

Isaac pulled back, watching Derek retreat with the drink. When Derek sipped it himself, Isaac’s eyes flashed.

Derek wasn’t punishing him, however. Instead, he traded the liquid for fries, which he picked three at a time to feed to Isaac.

 

And Isaac _let_ him.

“Slowly,” Derek repeated. His eyes, bright with amusement, were soft as they studied Isaac. The pup’s trusting mouth parted once again for food, which Derek folded inside, pleasing them both. “Good,” he said. Sucking the salt from his fingers, the Alpha wolf shifted to start the car.

At Derek’s lair, Isaac ate all three of his burgers. Derek allowed it. In the privacy of this space, Isaac could be what Derek helped him become. He could feast without the animal fear of a threat. Derek watched all this, took note of the way Isaac moved, the energy he was giving even as he seemed so satisfied with his meal.

Derek got up, leaving his food on the crate he used as a table. When he approached Isaac, the young wolf retreated into himself. Derek took his hand and began to massage it.

“I know I asked a lot of you today,” he said. “Keeping the wolf in like that, when it’s so ready to come out….”

Isaac avoided Derek’s gaze. That didn’t stop Derek from exploring, from working his fingers well into Isaac’s forearm.

“And I know it doesn’t feel good right now, because your body’s stressed. But you’re doing...Isaac, you’re—”

“You never answered my question.”

A beat of stillness passed before Derek carried on with his touch. He let loose a sound that was more breath than laugh, then shook his head, wetting his dried lips. Much of Isaac’s wolf had presented itself since those woods. It was near enough to the surface that Isaac looked changed.

Isaac balled his fist in Derek’s shirt. Derek stepped back, but he couldn’t look away as he was dragged forth. “Do you like me?” Isaac asked. Again.

There was Isaac’s handsome curls, enhanced, they seemed, by the moon, grown well beyond where they’d been just last night. A light spread of hair framed his jaw and upper lip, and a violent edge corrupted all his innocence. In fact, as Derek searched his beta’s face, he found his appearance was more man than boy.

“And what if I said I do?” Derek asked. “What if I don’t? What if,” he went on, wrapping his fist around Isaac’s wrist, “I just ignore the question altogether?”

“Because I’m not a girl?”

“Isaac—”

“You’re ashamed of it.”

“There’s same-sex mates in the animal kingdom, Isaac. Trust me. No one cares that you’re gay.”

“I’m... _not_.”

Derek shrugged, getting Isaac easily off him. The center of his shirt was ruined with wrinkles. “Listen,” he said, gentling his voice. “It’s not that. Isaac, how old are you?”

A pause. Then, “Sixteen. I’ll be 17 in September, so—”

“Exactly.”

“What, you’re like 20? That’s nothing.”

“Twenty-two.”

Isaac rolled his eyes.

“Going on 23. But it’s not that simple. Born werewolves age differently; we mature well before humans do.”

“Excuses.”

“What do you know about being with someone? How many girlfriends have you had? Or”—Derek passed a dubious look—“boyfriends?”

Isaac stood, putting some distance between them. He seemed upset when he said he’d had none.

 

“And that’s okay. I mean, look at me.”

Isaac didn’t.

“I’ve had one serious relationship. It was bad enough that I haven’t been with another woman since.”

“But you’ve been with men?”

Isaac felt the shift when Derek crowded into his space. It set him on edge, made him feel warm and oddly bonded to him.

“I haven’t been with any men,” Derek said. “But that’s not why we can’t do this. You’re too young, Isaac. It’s, well, illegal.”

Whipping around with a wild, victorious gleam in his golden eyes, Isaac rolled his fists, once again, into Derek’s shirt. “So you admit it?”

“Isaac—”

“Just—”

“Let’s see how we both feel after the moon. We wait,” Derek said, “and I promise we can discuss whatever we’re feeling once it passes.”

Isaac was reluctant to concede. He needed to know. For such a short time with this Alpha wolf, he felt like they were bound in ways more than pack. Because this wasn’t just “pack.” This wasn’t as simple as saying they only shared magick. Isaac felt the tenderness of their state.

“Your body’s stressed.”

Isaac scoffed. “As you’ve said before.”

“This is serious. We can’t keep you aroused—not like this and not here.”

Derek was touching Isaac again. His hands wrapped Isaac’s shoulders, which to Isaac were more muscled than they were when he’d been bunched up in that freezer.

He let Derek do it. Tomorrow was one day away. But even as the older male’s knuckles rolled on his neck, he knew that Derek had lied through his teeth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience as I took my time with this chap, and welcome to all the lovely new readers! What do you think is happening/will happen between these two?


	11. This Sweet Thing

Derek was packing a rucksack for The Yard, secured and private land the Hale family owned. Isaac watched with blazing eyes from the door of the subway car, his pants soaked with sweat and stinking the lair. 

“I told you you’d feel better without the clothes.”

“It’s embarrassing,” Isaac said. If not for the wolf in his voice, the words would have come from him softer than they’d been. “I can’t—it won’t go back down.”

“You can. And it would, if you did what I said.”

When Derek passed an easy look over Isaac, he felt the bond twist tight between them. It was labor enough to keep his eyes away from the generous tent, but Isaac’s scent paired well with the package he carried. _He’s a kid,_ Derek reminded himself. His teeth clamped painfully together. 

“Shower. Now. Go,” the Alpha directed. Isaac huffed, though he shuffled his way to the stairs that lead to the bathroom.

It was only Sunday morning.

They’d survived the night snoring near one another, Isaac more than Derek, fatigue having caught him. Derek had passed the time with elaborate text and email threads as he made an arrangement for a later date. He thought of it now, encouraged his mind to paste itself to the details instead of focusing on the sounds of Isaac upstairs.

 

Isaac hated this bathroom. There wasn’t enough light, it was small, and the wall tiles were green and unpleasant. It smelled like metal. The water pressure wasn’t great, and Derek wasn’t a fan of extravagant soaps. He studied himself in the mirror. His hands wrapped the sides of the sink, and as he leaned over, he saw the prominent cuts of his biceps and shoulders.

A flutter rolled through his stomach. This was what he’d forced Derek to see. And Derek did see it; him. And Isaac was all the warmer as he thought of it. Stapling his lip with his teeth, he held his own gaze in the mirror, reached for his sweats.

The drawstring came undone around his fingers. Within the well of shadows in his pants, a healthy erection stretched away from his body. He grabbed it and shook a thread of pre-cum out. A flash of gold light bounced from his eyes into the mirror, then he rolled them, recalling what Derek had said.

“Shit.”

He pondered over the weight he held in his palm. Hot and smooth, embellished with a beautiful set of veins, it never knew a touch not his own.

In spite of that truth, Isaac’s craving for Derek was shockingly cellular. Girls at school; girls around the way back home: none of them spoke to his body the way Derek did. But then none of them had given Isaac the lupine bite, which birthed an attachment Isaac was still making sense of.

 

With his back pressed on the front door where he was seated, Derek drew up his legs so he could rest his arms on his knees. He owned no lotion. He thought Isaac had sought some out from the sounds of crashing cosmetics, his choice of lube restricted to shampoo and toothpaste. A snort burst from Derek when he thought on the sting of mint. Surely the boy had more sense than that.

Fleeting humor didn’t assuage Derek’s arousal for long. Distinct, sticky sounds continued to plug into his ears, with Isaac’s breath catching at haphazard moments. Something about that, the way Isaac was vulnerable up there…. Derek scrubbed his beard as though it’d upset him. 

He couldn’t escape this.

His ears were too good, his nose, better, and he might as well have joined Isaac—helped him, even—with how _involved_ he felt in the whole affair. “Isaac,” he bit out. _“Finish it off.”_ But it was taking Isaac longer than Derek believed he could stay put and bear, perhaps a poor performance due to his presence. He scraped his hands through his hair, balling it up at the roots. The blood in his body pulled toward his groin.

Derek got up. The same primal hunger that wet his mouth and inflated his cock took hold of him in unfamiliar fashion. Isaac was _up there._ He had no one to cover him while he did that sensitive work, sent off unprotected by his own Alpha. Shoving his fists in his jeans, Derek’s mouth parted on a breath.

He paced to the short set of stairs that carried Isaac’s scent from the bathroom. There was more to it here, not just the wolf or the boy. A wild and beckoning spice filled Derek’s body.

 

Sensing the shadow in the stairwell before he turned his eyes toward it, Isaac fumbled, stuffing himself back into his sweats.

“I’m not looking,” and the horrified, “What are you _doing_?” came from both males at once. Isaac backed into the shower, his pants speckled with dark, wet spots. Derek was shielding his eyes with one hand, head tipped to conceal his sight in shadow. His free hand, whose fingers were topped with the wolf’s claws, reached ahead of his body in surrender.

“I just—”

“You just what?” Isaac demanded. He could go no further into the wall.

“I was... _checking_...on you. Alright? Let me, I don’t know, be here. For protection.”

“For pro—?”

“Yes,” Derek interrupted, “I mean no. Not like that.”

With his large, glowing eyes, Isaac searched Derek all over. One of his hands was locked around the front of the band of his sweats, gripping it as if the drawstring wasn’t enough.

“It’s the moon,” Derek said. “It amplifies the pack bond. It—you were just up here, doing this sweet thing to yourself, and I thought….”

_“Sweet thing?”_

“Well not from the way I saw it. It’s no wonder you haven’t finished, you’re...rough.”

Derek dropped his hands then, looking at Isaac, looking like he wanted to be closer to him but not daring to do it. Isaac grimaced. His chest was impossibly red, the color climbing his throat toward his face.

“You looked at me,” he accused.

“I didn’t. I wasn’t,” Derek said. “I just caught a glimpse when I came up, and it was only to check on you. You were alone, and you’re pack and new and I was...concerned.”

“Concerned. For me jerking off. Right.”

Isaac shook his head. He didn’t know if he was embarrassed or pissed or turned on. It was confusing between them. And what had Derek meant by “sweet thing”?

 

He hadn’t meant to make things more tense between them. It already felt different since the closet, and Derek could still taste Isaac’s blood from those bites, so he thought. Their drive to The Yard was silent, with Isaac biting his nails, much to Derek’s aching discomfort, and Derek choking the shit out of the wheel.

“I’m sorry I scared you,” he said once they parked. Isaac just looked at him, the words seeming lost in his ribs.

They got out together. Derek secured the gates, jailing them in. “No one else comes here, so we’ll be alone,” he’d told Isaac earlier, which he thought of now as he longed to comfort his beta.

Why had he gone up there?

They were the only breathing bodies in the lair; no one could have come in and hurt Isaac. Yet, he went, with whatever protective intention he’d had inside himself that could be a detriment to everything now.

It wasn’t yet dusk, and while the moon wouldn’t crest for several hours, Isaac needed this time to feel the land. “You can undress now,” Derek said, “or you can let the transformation take your clothes. Whatever’s comfortable.”

He knew Isaac thought of the bathroom by the way he avoided his gaze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year! How is everyone, and did you miss Disaac?


	12. Brutal Music

Wind carried The Yard’s core ingredients: deer; petal-littered pond water; and moonlight. Isaac rolled his shoulders, a barren attempt to shift the power around inside his body.

It was dark, though not to Isaac, whose eyes had well adjusted to night. He could hear things in the grass that were beyond them. Deep in the loam, he sensed the shifting of small and evasive prey. This fascinated him. He’d like to surrender, be present amid the air and earth and the night and let his mouth hang in childlike enthrallment, but it wasn’t enough. He was also prey. The creature deep in the water of his audibly-breaking bones was hunting him, too.

“Remember to breathe,” Derek said, watching him, of course, just how he’d done from those stairs. But Isaac couldn’t give himself to that, not now, with his jaw in a blooming state of pain. “The less you resist it”—Derek lowered to a crouch before him—“the more fluid the shift will be for you.”

Isaac spit blood. Some of his teeth were loose enough to nudge around with his tongue. In his head, he heard nebulous cracking sounds. And maybe he could take it if his hands weren’t deformed, or if his tailbone wasn’t pounding like a troll was hammering through it from his pelvis, but those things were happening, too. He sipped up some air, careful not to trigger a change in his ribs.

_“Derek.”_

“I know.”

The words were loaded with such raw sympathy. Isaac felt the burn of tears on his cheeks. 

“Your body,” Derek continued, gentler—though Isaac didn’t know how that was achieved with how careful he’d already been, “knows what to do.”

“It’s gonna kill me.”

“I promise it’s not.”

Isaac’s neck rolled. Red spit swung on his lip.

“It’s not,” Derek repeated.

“And you—you don’t feel this?”

Derek spoke, but Isaac couldn’t hear him through the sound of rushing water in his skull. He sank his hands in the dirt, bracing himself—battling his body, rather—locking in his place on the ground.

That didn’t feel good, either. He was sure Derek was saying that over the liquid, brutal music. He also knew he didn’t quite care. Once he relaxed—even just some—the transformation picked up in speed to ruin him. Like this, he convinced himself that he could control how it went. He’d let the pain come as he could take it.

Derek stood. Isaac, through a spasm, lifted his eyes to watch his Alpha snatch off his clothes. That looked better to Isaac. When he shifted to copy the act, Derek helped.

“I’m cold.”

“It’s the fever. Shhh, Isaac, listen: you’re alright.”

Isaac nodded, his loose teeth chipping off as he shivered. Derek held out his hand for Isaac to spit what was left of his molars into his palm.

It went on like that, with Isaac combatting the inevitable and Derek, in perfect control, ever attentive.

_When is it over?_

_God, it can’t be bad like this much longer._

He looked down, seeing Derek balanced on one knee, the girth of his cock frightening and impressive.

 

Derek woke with Isaac tucked beneath him. Dawn was a pastel haze behind the fog of a promising Monday morning.

Isaac didn’t stir, even when Derek sat up, thus exposing his body to the elements. In fact, he was so imprisoned by sleep that Derek thought this was a good time to explore.

Dirt and leaves were pasted all over the pup. Derek liked that. Isaac, even in plain clothes, presented himself to the world in a careful way. Everything had to be neat. It had to be perfect. _Making up for that father,_ Derek thought. He let the rage come, then released it.

Because how could he be upset?

How could he not look down at this boy and feel good?

They’d chased and they’d raced and they’d nipped and tackled each other, and they’d killed. And they’d eaten their kills—together—with Derek leading Isaac all the way.

Something had happened in that closet.

Even as Isaac was stretched on his belly, one leg bent, his balls and round ass exposed, Derek thought of the closet; what’d occurred there between those two bites.

_No._

Yet, yes. Here, beneath the tree that’d watched them sleep. Derek, who looked as wild and filthy as Isaac, lowered his nose to the back of Isaac’s leg. There it was, as fresh it’d been that first night: Isaac’s scent of pepper; ginger; mint.

Derek wanted to taste the soft meat fragranced with sweat at the bend of that one leg. He played with a fantasy of waking Isaac with small kisses on the waist, matching little bites, his hands, large and sure, along Isaac’s back. He thought of Isaac moaning for the hot mouth at his ass, shoving—

 _No,_ Derek said again to himself. But then Isaac, as if he weren’t so sleep, after all, hid his head in his arms while hitching his leg farther up on the grass.

“Isaac….”

He said nothing. The offer, nevertheless, was presented. Derek read Isaac’s physicality instead, watching him go taught as if he held his breath with his whole submissive body.

“Don’t make me do this.” As he dragged his tongue through Isaac’s crack. “C’mon. Baby…. Not yet.”

Neither stopped.

Derek reached to pry Isaac apart. Now that they were like this, Derek came to feel comfortable that he’d thought of how it would be before this time. Isaac: spread; prone; inexperienced. And so soon. He dipped his head to drive his tongue in his hole.

Isaac made a sound that was sweet and low in his throat as if his pleasure were a thing he had to hide. Nonetheless, Derek thought the noise he gave him was pretty. Lapping the tender ring, Derek drew it out again, excitement so large that his mouth became flooded with spit.

He took his time as he locked Isaac down by his waist, feeling the pads of his fingers leave little dents. Isaac wasn’t the tense, controlling pup he’d been last night, what with the way he was draped like silk all over the grass. He wanted Derek. He pressed on Derek’s mouth, moaning as Derek gave back. When Derek chewed and kissed across the youthful curves of his ass, Isaac craned his neck to have a look.

Derek’s chest pinched with affection. Though he was Alpha, he wanted nothing more than to service his beta, to worship Isaac where he was tight.

 

Isaac thought he’d be more embarrassed about someone getting to know his ass—especially when that someone was a man—but he loved what Derek made him feel. The wide, flat-tongued licks were his favorite. He spun when Derek went in, lapping his hole until he was soft enough to take a cock up inside if he wanted. Then there was the grabbing; the way Derek spoke with such authority, though everything he said to Isaac was careful.

And now….

Now, Derek Hale was getting up, the contact breaking between them. Isaac shut his eyes and pressed his forehead to the ground. The breeze across his cheeks made them cold.

There was no mistaking the weight that followed. As Derek covered his back and nudged his head to have Isaac’s throat, the length of Derek’s dick pressed Isaac’s ass.

“Tell me it’s okay,” Derek said, needing consent even in his present half-wolfed state. All Isaac could do was nod. He hoped that was enough, touched as he was that Derek actually gave a shit.

Derek spanned his hand on Isaac’s face, which had turned so one cheek was pressed to the grass. Then, in one slick thrust, he plugged him full, and they both hissed a curse in delicious unison.

“Tell me it’s okay,” Derek repeated. He was inside—there was no amount of stillness to minimize that—yet he didn’t move as if it were only an audible answer that’d get him to fuck.

“It’s okay,” Isaac said. Pleaded. One of his hands was palm-deep in the ground.

“To do what?”

“Hell, Derek—you know.”

“What is it okay for me to do?”

Isaac, now seized by his own innocence, heard clear the Alpha in Derek’s voice. He knew he was red. He knew, as Derek slid his hand from Isaac’s face to his hair, that he had no choice but to spit, _“To fucking have me.”_

Derek arched back, then he rocked forth, striking Isaac in such a way that the pleasure made him cry out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. This was **not** due to happen for several more chapters, but Derek really couldn’t fucking help it.


	13. A Sherbet Shade of Pink

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With Isaac’s age—and the gap between his and Derek’s—being such an important subject now in the story, I did some digging around to find the exact ages they were when Derek bit Isaac in the show. Because I was off a year, I’ve had to make edits in Increasingly Creature, where they discussed their ages for the first time.
> 
> Derek bit Isaac February 2011, which would make Isaac 16, since his birthday isn’t until September 22 (1994)—a Virgo. So, while he told Derek that he was 17, he isn’t quite yet, and I changed the dialogue to reflect it. According to a photo of Derek’s license, his birthday is November 7, 1988, making him a whole year younger than I’d written. Oops! Edits reflect that change, too.
> 
> I’m not gonna go all astrology on y’all (yet?), but a sextile relationship like Virgo/Scorpio is _so fucking perfect_ and makes me all the more excited to share my take on their pairing. It has nothing to do with the fact that I’m also a Virgo who loves Scorpios (and Cancers—*heart eyes*). Nope, nothing at all.

“...And the itching, when the hair—”

“Fur.”

“—was growing out,” Isaac continued, his eyes narrowed as he spoke to Derek, who laughed, open and playful. “It was….”

“No, I get it. You felt it slowly since you drew out the change. Which was okay,” Derek assured, reeling Isaac back in before he got lost. “It’s just that when you give in to the wolf, it takes you too fast for you to feel things like that.”

Isaac played with the hem of his sweater sleeve. He hadn’t dressed his lower half, keeping it accessible for Derek, who liked to play with his asshole while they talked. As he’d explained to his Alpha, he felt more grounded like this, the root of himself in contact with the earth.

“I still don’t like that you’re missing school.”

“It’s one day.”

“I still can’t believe you’re _in_ school.”

Isaac kept his blue eyes low. He didn’t want this part and hoped that Derek would lock it away for a time never coming. “I feel good,” he said, steering them elsewhere. “It’s like...a high. A fuzziness.” He looked at Derek now. “Does that make sense?”

“The day after a moon, we still hold its power inside us. It keeps us pliant. That’s how you were...how _we_ ….”

Isaac urged him to go on with his eyes.

“It’s how I was able to fit. Inside you, without hurting you. Werewolves like us, we’re tender after we shift. It’s like our bodies are born again every time.”

“So….”

It was Derek’s turn to make a gesture at Isaac with only his face.

“You’re saying the next time we do this, it will hurt me?”

“Isaac….” Derek heavily sighed.

“What? Don’t... _do_ this.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“Then why say my name like that? Or sigh, like it bothers you so much, what we did?”

“It doesn’t bother me,” Derek said. “Well, yeah, it does. But not _because_ we did it,” he rushed to amend, gripping Isaac’s nape when he threatened to move. “It’s your age.”

“I’m—”

“Once you turn 18, we can do this again.”

“So you admit you feel things for me?”

Derek drew back.

“No,” Isaac snapped. “You told me—you promised we would talk about this after the full moon.”

“ _After._ When it’s out of both our systems, I said ‘once it passes.’ Not while we’re still affected, and we are.”

 

Derek knew he needed to make it right. Once the presence of the supernatural was stripped, it came down to this: Isaac had been a virgin, and now he was not. So when Isaac stood up, stomping bare-assed back to the car, Derek got ahead to block his path.

“Let’s go back 10 minutes and start this over.”

“Why?” Isaac scowled. “You made up your mind already.”

“I was stupid. We’re already here, we have food, The Yard….”

Isaac shifted back to look Derek over. _What a fucking sight,_ Derek thought as he admired how well Isaac wore the goddamn wolf. His spread of scruff and tousled hat of curls balanced out the looming height he’d long since acquired. Still, the two inches he had on Derek had meant nothing back there, or anywhere else in this world they’d face off, for that matter.

They returned to their tree. Derek waited for Isaac to sit, then joined.

“There is something between us,” he started. “It was there, before that whole thing with your dad, but after….” _In the closet,_ Derek wanted to say, but didn’t. “When we left your house, I knew something was different, I knew it had changed, but I didn’t….”

Why was he having a hard time? He shook his head, swiped at his nose and ran the back of his hand along his jaw.

“This thing.”

Isaac’s eyes glimmered with concern.

“It’s not just your age. I’ve been here before, Isaac. Passion, it can burn out fast and...I don’t want that again.” _Not with you._ “But I won’t ruin this day for you. Because I do like you. And I know you’ll try to get your way with that, but I need you to know that I didn’t do that with you back there just to get off.”

“What did you do back there?” Isaac asked.

Derek snorted once he realized the game.

“What did you do?”

“You know what.”

Isaac brought his face to Derek’s. “Tell me.”

 

So the moon was still inside him, but so what. Isaac felt brave. He felt safe, and it wasn’t often like that with most men.

Derek was sitting still, his naked back to the tree, his naked legs drawn up between them. Isaac had crossed his own and folded his arms on Derek’s knees, looking all the more a helpless youth.

“What did you do?” Isaac pressed.

“I came in your ass. Stroked you off, let you cum on my abs.”

Isaac lowered his eyes once more. “And you liked it?”

“Yes.”

“And we’ll do it again?”

“Yes.”

Isaac perked up.

“When you’re 18.”

They laughed. Isaac stamped Derek’s leg with a bite.

“Hey,” Derek barked without any heat. “That’s how we got here now.”

They bantered. Isaac relaxed, retiring most of his cravings and falling content with simply being close to Derek. It dawned on him that the closeness could feel just as sweet. _We don’t_ have _to fuck,_ he told himself. 

Later, when their finger food ran out, they dressed at the trunk of the car and head from The Yard.

“We’ll be back,” Derek said when he saw Isaac’s face.

But Isaac had other problems and picked his nails, the threads of his sweater; anything to take his mind from his father. It wasn’t like he’d never return home. Only this time, he’d have to explain the closet: why he and Derek were in there, and why they were bleeding.

He balled his fists. During the small panic, he hadn’t seen that their route was away from the lair. Derek gripped his thigh, giving a reassuring squeeze, and Isaac thought of the filthy things they’d done.

 

“This is home now.”

Isaac dumped his backpack on the floor. Past the wall of windows straight ahead, the sun was setting, painting the sky a sherbet shade of pink. There was a couch. A desk. A bed tucked in one corner that caused Isaac’s heartbeat to skip.

“Home?” he asked, unsure.

“I bought it. All of it. You can be safe here...with me.”

“You want me to live here. With you.”

Derek’s face was tight and severe.

“But my dad—”

The wolf crossed his arms.

“I can’t just—how would that even work?”

“You eat at the table.” Derek jutted his chin toward it. “You shower and sleep here. You wake up here in the morning and go to school. When school’s over, you come back and do it again. On weekends, we train.”

“So you don’t want—you won’t date me. You just want me as a roommate, and in even more trouble with my father.”

Derek stepped toward him. “None of that’s true.”

“But—”

“Trust, Isaac. That’s where we start.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suffice it to say that I’m making up for my absence. ;-)


	14. Cyber Grape Comforter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who would I be if I didn’t honor the Super Blood Wolf Moon with yet another back-to-back chapter?

_“There’s only one bed?” Isaac asked, voice ringing with a childlike air of uncertainty. He watched Derek flick his cold regard across the covers before turning his gaze, resolved, to meet Isaac’s._

_“It’s big enough.”_

_“But then we’d have to…?”_

Isaac rubbed his neck as he faced it now. It was late, and not the first sunless hours, but the deep, black heaviness of night, and he had avoided this spot, as it stood for the sheets he would soon have to share with Derek.

He didn’t know how to do that.

There were boundaries he was unsure of, like if they could cuddle, at least. Was there a side Derek preferred? Could they eat snacks on it? The cyber grape comforter remained unaffected by either male’s touch or scent. Isaac didn’t know if he was to wait for Alpha’s orders, but as he was tired, he shoved himself in without even daring to look for the man with whom he shared this worn and industrial home.

Which was stupid, because he was a minor—and he could count on Derek to remind him when he “forgot”—and his dad…. It didn’t matter. Isaac was in the bed, it was late, he wasn’t returning there—at least not this week—and he wanted to get back to the delicious feelings he’d cradled just hours ago.

Later, after Isaac had dozed to visions of The Yard, he found himself nudged awake by a nose.

 

Derek had kept his distance, offering space for Isaac to touch their den. It was a permanent investment. Permanent, as in, if all went well, they wouldn’t have to move for a while. But it was indeed late, and after studying Isaac from shadows he knew had ensconced him, Derek approached the bed, seeking pack.

The spicy-mint balm that came off his pup was cleaner now. He’d soaped off the moon and Yard, scrubbed Derek’s affection from his skin until it sluiced with suds down the tub drain. And the bed was perfumed by Isaac, like it belonged only to Isaac, a thing Derek would soon act to correct.

When he’d nudged Isaac’s throat with his nose—starting there as he lowered over his body from above—Isaac made a sound, a sleepy song behind the teeth that was Derek’s invitation to proceed. They nuzzled, instinctively now, on Isaac’s end, the transformation sealing canid impulses.

Isaac parted his lips to receive Derek’s kiss. Their mouths had a velvet embrace, sliding apart with a delicate smack that made Derek pleased. Then, as he’d intended the moment he climbed across the bed, he used his tongue to pass the stone onto Isaac’s.

A fluid transaction.

Isaac, nonetheless, was surprised by the gift.

Pushing up in his forearms, he took it from his mouth, sleep releasing him enough to allow his interest. In a moonbeam that spilled through their windows, the raw chunk of emerald gleamed.

In the morning, as Isaac prepared for school, Derek’s breath continued to snag in his chest. He was _fucked_ and he knew it, or perhaps they were fucked together, considering Isaac was 50 percent of this mess. But when he caught Isaac on the arm of the couch, turning the emerald around between his fingers, he couldn’t quite care what they’d done.

He wanted this. Perhaps it was all chemical and werewolf magick and bonds but he wanted this kid, this puppy of a boy who hadn’t a clue what the hell was going on.

 

Isaac was distracted at school. He noticed things—and people—that hadn’t caught his eye—or nose—before.

There were other wolves.

And it wasn’t just wolves.

A cocktail of creatures flooded this place.

“And there’s this girl,” he told Derek when he picked him up from the curb at 3:25, “and she always smelled good but today…. Today, she was... _incredible._ Like this….”

“Magick,” Derek offered.

“Like witches?”

“And faeries.”

He was still rambling on as they waited for food.

At the diner table, Isaac reached below it into his pocket. When his hand emerged with the stone he’d been given last night, Derek’s scent scorched with unbearable spice.

“What’s wrong?” Isaac asked; timid.

“Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“Tell me. Please?”

Derek slid his arms up on the table and linked his fingers. At the intensity of his stare, Isaac turned his honey lashes down.

“I just don’t want you to lose it,” Derek said.

“I’m not.”

“Because it’s important.”

Isaac propped his elbow on the table. In the sunlight, he studied the stone’s inclusions.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Do you know what it is?”

“A crystal of sorts.”

“Yes.” Derek laughed at the simple tone. “It’s an emerald. A natural one; not lab-grown or glass. I wanted you to have it.”

Isaac’s eyes flashed to Derek’s when he felt the utter anguish in their bond. It was so pure while being so frantic, but the waiter returned before he could ask what it meant.

After, when they were full more from the milkshakes than their steaks, Derek parked outside Isaac’s house. Which, to Isaac, was confusing, since he now also lived with Derek.

“I just don’t want him to worry. Think I’m dead or something, I don’t know.”

“We can go in,” Derek said.

Isaac shook his head, peering beyond the tinted window toward the blinds of the lit dining room. He imagined his dad in there with no wife, no eldest son, and now, no Isaac, seated with his dinner—alone. He clutched the emerald in his fist, pressed the fist to his mouth, and wondered.

Back at the loft, Derek slid a glass with dark liquid across the desk.

“Just this once,” he said, eyes bright with fondness.

Now that he knew what coke and Hennessy felt like on the tongue, Isaac wished he’d had it before being bitten. Still, the gesture from Derek was kind. He poured himself into homework with the emerald resting nearby, feeling every time the wolf watched.

 

“How much do you like me?”

Derek looked over at Isaac, his brows high on his forehead. On the couch they were huddled up on, the energy switched.

“A lot,” Derek said.

“Because I’m yours? I mean your beta. The pack bond and everything.”

Nothing was lost on Derek. He searched Isaac’s face, pink with embarrassment.

“You can’t tempt me, Isaac,” he said, his voice so low he didn’t believe it himself. But he could still taste the kiss and the beryl and the youth, and he’d thought of those things all day. He’d thought of The Yard.

“What can we do? What can I do?”

Derek shook his head. It wasn’t a negative answer, so to keep Isaac from thinking that—because he would, with that overworked mind—he circled his hand around Isaac’s ankle.

“It’s hard,” he began, “because everything makes me want to do more with you. And you live here now, and it’s all...it’s all tempting, Isaac. And maybe that’s my fault. But I want you here.”

Isaac wet his lips. Derek saw the need, raw and blazing. There was much he wanted to teach, from wolf laws to the magick of their blood. Isaac needed to know the power he held; the responsibility. As guardians of the land with ancient ties to varying gods, wolves were great protectors of the world.

“I want to be here,” Isaac said. “Last night? When you kissed me….”

Derek kept himself quiet.

“I’ve never felt like this—about anyone.”


	15. Gold Kimono

As week became weekend, the den they shared had grown fragrant with wolf. Isaac had used the kitchen—once—to boil Derek eggs, which he sliced atop toast and paired with a simple white gravy. Derek decided he’d stay away from the stove most days, what with a master chef in the loft, performing his alchemy.

This musical Saturday, rain washed the concrete clean. Derek was glad of it. He all but languished when Isaac was gone for school, so to have him sequestered at home put the Alpha at ease.

And Isaac—who slept on his belly, curls sprouting out from the sheets—was all the more Derek’s as the hours passed. Derek liked to believe that it was more than the closet and Yard, that affection between them would come, in the end, no matter. Yet, it seemed every touch and look and the nearness drew them closer, knitting their hearts into a single force.

He sat up. Isaac had started sleeping with his emerald under his pillows, and the crystal had rolled from beneath them during the night. Derek stared at it now, felt its loving vibration against him and knew that was part of the reason Isaac enjoyed it so much. But it wasn’t just its vibration. Derek knew that, too. The sentiment—the kiss—was attached to the gift.

Before Isaac woke, Derek slipped from the loft to hunt their breakfast. He returned with meat and pastries; a bouquet of wildflowers.

 

Isaac floated from sleep at the scent of pollen. Strange petals dragged across his lips, painting the lower half of his face with a cocktail of perfumes. His eyes met Derek’s. Storm-light splashed into the loft from the wall of windows and Isaac’s cheeks bloomed the shade of candy.

He laughed, hugging the flowers to his chest. This was how he’d like to be awakened each morning. The loft would have carpets of petals; leaves would float in the kitchen sink; Derek would look at him like he was some sticky treat.

“Am I still pretty?” Isaac asked. His face was half-hidden behind the bouquet.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Derek laughed a hollow little laugh.

“Do you want me to be a girl?”

Then, Derek lowered, brought himself closer to Isaac and the flowers, and his lips trailed the bridge of Isaac’s nose.

They kissed.

It had been since their first kiss with the first gift that they’d touched like this. The shock of it made Isaac freeze. He didn’t realize he was crushing the flowers between them—as well as holding his breath—until he scented the sugar on Derek; until he tasted it.

“I don’t want you to be a girl.”

“Why?”

Derek captured Isaac’s mouth again. He sucked his lip as he pried himself away. “Because then you wouldn’t be you. You wouldn’t be who I like. Who I want.”

“And you like me.” Because Isaac _liked_ hearing that. And after several days without kissing, he was drugged, already, by this.

“I like you. Close your eyes.”

He did. 

“Open your mouth.”

Isaac couldn’t keep the snicker inside. “For what?”

“Open your mouth….”

Isaac’s mouth fell open, though his lips were still twitching into a grin. Something soft went inside; something sweet.

“You need new clothes,” Derek said, voice matching the loft’s quiet.

Isaac nodded, his mouth open for more.

“We’ll get them later. Maybe even some panties to wear underneath.”

It was pound cake. Beyond, Isaac smelled pork and fruit. Derek fed him that, too, pressing food into his mouth with the tips of his fingers. As he chewed, he imagined the panties mentioned, wondered how they’d look and how they’d feel.

Later, when the food had cooled and his flowers rest on his pillow, Isaac sat with the comforter piled on his lap. “What do you do?” he asked Derek. “For work, I mean. The loft, and the car...it looks expensive.”

Derek stared at their hands. Isaac had one of his fists circling Derek’s wrist, and his thumb swept back and forth with soothing rhythm.

 

“I’m a Superlunary Sentinel.”

Isaac blanched.

“I guard portals between this dimension and others. Keep the bad spirits out. Welcome the good ones in. What we are—what we do—is ancient service.”

 _“We?”_ Isaac’s eyes were hopeful. The color crept back into his face.

“Yes. Werewolves like us, we’re activated by a different magick. The wolf spirit that gives us our abilities, changes our bodies, our blood, it requires our fidelity to the land. We protect it—Earth. That’s why we exist.”

Derek busied himself with Canadian bacon. He felt the importance settle onto Isaac and waited as not to influence his stream of thought. They ate in silence awhile, Isaac’s brow pinched, jaw working food. The urge to take him had never been so great.

“Superlunary Sentinel,” Isaac said. “But how do I do it? How do I guard the portals?”

Derek took Isaac’s face and leaned for a kiss. “With time,” he later said. They dropped it for now.

It was past noon when Isaac reeked of lemon, and not from the breakfast fruit. Emotional shifts were happening in his body. Derek snapped his gaze across his beta and watched him twitch on the couch as he tried time and again to make himself comfortable. When Isaac went from twisting his neck to rolling his stone in his palms, Derek reached, at last, to grip his leg.

“You know I can smell it,” Derek said, “when something’s wrong.”

He was pressed against Isaac now. His breath brushed along Isaac’s neck.

“I know,” Isaac said. “It’s nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing bad, just...a question.”

Derek knew he’d have those. He always had those. It was the scent—the fidgeting—that concerned him.

 

Isaac swallowed. He didn’t want the petting and kissing to stop, not when Derek had been taming each occurrence of physical contact. “What makes today different?” he asked. “What makes you show affection? To me?”

When Derek went cold, Isaac had expected it. His hand was already in the Alpha’s shirt, tugging him back when he shifted on the couch to turn away.

“Isaac—”

“I want to be with you.”

 _“I know,”_ Derek said, sounding pained.

“We can guard portals together, you can show me. I won’t—I’m not a _kid_.”

“But you are. Isaac…. Stop.”

Isaac shook his head as he slipped from Derek’s grasp, standing away from the couch, scowling down at him.

“I don’t want to pretend. I don’t want to act like it’s nothing.”

Derek scrubbed his face.

“And I know you don’t either,” Isaac went on. “You’re different today. I _feel_ it.”

“The _animal kingdom_ is different. That’s what you feel. You’re adjusting to the wolf, to the way time passes in the wild.”

“Okay. Explain.”

“Animals can find their mate in a day. It’s all timing and genetics and pretty shows. And then it just happens. It’s not like with humans, where you date for years and then maybe you marry.”

Isaac returned to Derek, fitting himself between Derek’s knees. Derek’s eyes were hot when Isaac went for Derek’s jeans, undoing the button; the zipper.

“Are you gonna stop me?” Isaac asked when the denim laid open.

Black boxer briefs trapped the erection. Derek said nothing, merely shifted his weight atop the cushion, staring down at Isaac on his knees.

Was this happening? Was Derek giving permission with his silence, or was his silence just silence? Isaac thought of The Yard; the control Derek showed. He thought of the way Derek required consent. But as he reached inside with his heartbeat in his throat, Derek didn’t say for him to stop. Isaac wrapped his hand around the fabric and the cock and eased it out. And it was perfect. It was fat and tall and the tip was distinct in its shape—a flawless cap. But something bothered Isaac. It was his lack of experience or the lack of approval from Derek, or perhaps it was all of it. He lowered his eyes and reluctantly eased away.

Derek leaned forward then. He was already tucking his dick back in his jeans while the opposite hand clamped on Isaac’s nape.

“Good boy,” he kept repeating in Isaac’s ear.

 

In the department store, racks of male cardigans and supple, fitted shirts caught Isaac’s attention. Derek noted the styles of items that caused Isaac to stop in the event that he later purchased clothes as gifts.

Isaac hadn’t said much since the couch, but that was fine. Derek wanted Isaac all the more. His pup trailed the sweet scent of guilt from loft to car, so Derek’s ride smelled like a peach.

The cart began to pile up with straight-legged jeans, dark denim, some rolled at the cuffs; t-shirts that hang past the waist with little pockets on the breast or the side of a sleeve; sweaters with varying styles of collars; a dozen infinity scarves; silk kimono jackets; loose, patterned pants; the cardigans; the supple, fitted shirts; and several boxes of shoes stored underneath.

“I was thinking,” Isaac began. Derek parked the cart in the aisle, listening. “I can join the lacrosse team. I want to. It’d be fun, you know? Tackling peo—”

“No.”

Isaac’s face screwed up. 

“You’re not _tackling_ people. They’re kids.”

“I’m a kid.”

“No; you’re a werewolf. You don’t have that kind of control yet.”

“I was a kid earlier,” Isaac grumbled. 

In the dressing room, when Isaac turned to swing the door shut between them, Derek’s hand flew out to stop it. Isaac backed into the luminous space and watched as Derek shut and locked them both inside with the clothes.

Isaac smiled as he pulled on a gold kimono. Derek imagined him striding around the loft in his gentle way, the fabric flowing behind like liquid sun. It was after, as he was watching Isaac try on his boots, that the feeling of being tugged by the bones interrupted.

Derek stood. His jaw was tight as he fished for his keys and wallet, dumping them on the clothes Isaac had worn there.

“Derek?” Isaac’s brow wrinkled. But before Derek could tell him, “Buy the clothes and drive home,”—before Derek began to undress himself—his body dissolved into strange, black curls of dense smoke, and the smoke was snatched—in the shape of a wolf—through the mirror.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor edit: the chapter title has been changed from Superlunary Sentinel to Gold Kimono. Isaac receiving three courting gifts from Derek (the loft; the emerald; the new wardrobe) just seemed to pair better with the (originally unintentional) color-themed chapter titles that went along with those gifts. Welcome to the processes of a Virgo!


	16. Dark Matter

There’d been nothing to portend Derek’s departure. When he’d crowded into the dressing room after Isaac, Isaac thought they’d have some secret, intimate play amongst his clothes. He hadn’t known he would want to until then. Fantasies of things they could’ve done plagued Isaac just as Derek melting to smoke haunted him, too. But it wasn’t Derek’s doing—Isaac deduced that much. Before Derek left, Isaac felt the urgent shift and saw the change on Derek’s face, sensed him tense. If not for having learned what he had of Derek earlier, Isaac would have felt more fear than this.

As Isaac sat in the driver’s seat of Derek’s cherished car, he couldn’t halt the images of smoke. In his mind, Derek repeated the abrupt, transfiguring cycle. He dissolved as if wind and was snatched from behind through that mirror. _Is it me?_ Isaac worried. If Derek’s very existence was established to _protect_ , then of course bedding a minor went against it.

Isaac peered at the back seats where his hundreds of dollars of clothes were piled in their bags. Superlunary Sentinels had to be paid beyond what Isaac had imagined, as thousands in cash remained in Derek’s wallet and what looked like tiny diamonds were tucked in the coin pocket.

Who was Derek, really? Because Isaac had many questions. Was this how it’d always be, how he’d always have to leave? Was there no warning when this service was required, and who else protected the portals? How many Sentinels were there? Were they werewolves, too, or was there a mixture of creatures committed to do it? Isaac punched his leg. He knew _nothing_.

While driving back to the loft, then getting his bags up all the stairs, Isaac felt the pack bond thin. He froze at their home’s sliding door, eyes wild as he sought their psychic tie.

 

It was the shape of the wolf which protecting the portals required. Within the astral, however, a Superlunary Sentinel was to be, at all times, spectral.

When Derek felt himself summoned back in that room, he knew he’d have no chance to ready Isaac for how they’d come to part. The force—the enormity of the power which had called him—was one he couldn’t deny with will alone. So he’d left the wallet and keys, hoping Isaac would intuit the following steps and just go home and wait for him there.

A hazy, towering beast with wild smoke in place of fur, Derek toured the Beacon Hills borders. Spirits presenting as animals; angelic orbs; the disembodied: all roamed this shimmering dimension. One particular parasite didn’t belong at this moment, however, overstaying its welcome in search of a tear. Dark matter probed for an entry to the lower three dimensions where it’d seek a flesh-and-blood body for its work.

Derek was hunting that thing, a shapeshifting creature much like himself, though it—wherever it was—vibrated darker. And so he searched for energy that wouldn’t agree with his own, a chase that could take him deep into this world.

Kicking up visible stardust as his paws came down on the floor, Derek blurred across the land; the woods. His eyes glowed with a powerful sight which allowed him to see every aura, from the trees to the spirits and sky—even himself. When Isaac’s face filled him up, he tossed his head to eject the image. He snapped his teeth at the wind and pushed himself on.

 

Isaac didn’t eat. His belly was coiled with emotion and a supernatural grip he hadn’t felt since he last vomited black. Seated on Derek’s side of the bed, his elbows pressed dents into his thighs. He stared at the shopping bags left on the floor.

“You’re not dead,” Isaac said. “You’re coming back. He’s coming back.”

But nothing and no one was there to confirm it.

Sunday morning, Isaac woke half-dressed, half-under the covers. His arm was hanging over the edge of the bed. Yes, he was still on Derek’s side, he came to determine. Derek’s scent was thick and laced in the sheets. He jerked himself up, swung his legs so his feet kissed the floor. When he stood, he called Derek’s name, imploring.

By lunch, Isaac piled his bagged clothes onto the couch. He swept the floors. He fried bacon, toasted wheat bread to make a sandwich, but ate only the greasy, red meat. He thought to make up the bed with new sheets, but any impulse to clean the loft was intercepted by Derek’s markings.

He couldn’t lose the smell of him. And yes, _it’s not even been a whole day_ , but close enough. Isaac was pulling his hair.

_Derek. Are you ok?_

The first of his ongoing texts, none of which were said to be delivered. When the sun peeled its light from the sky, Isaac was ill enough to have to hack his heart out in the sink. The returning scent of licorice paired with strange, ebony bubbles, which Isaac watched descend into the drain.

Close to midnight, after a hard cry in the shower, Isaac slid on a jacket, grabbed Derek’s keys. When he parked outside the cemetery, there was no scent of his father. His car wasn’t parked on the lot, either.

Isaac entered the crypt where the initial bite was given. Beneath his shirt, he touched his waist and remembered. The thought of Derek’s mouth and teeth and hands wrapped around him made his throat and eyes burn with sudden emotion.

The texts still weren’t delivered. A shadow fell over Isaac as he got himself to a seat on the ground.

“Hello,” someone said. “Where is your mate?”


	17. Bodhi

Their dark skin glowed with red undertones and grew from it the blackest, shiniest hair Isaac had seen. The hair—which was loose—swung beyond the stranger’s chest in glorious bundles of thick, soft waves. Isaac stepped aside, gaze meeting eerie eyes, the crypt feeling tight around this mysterious presence. And when Isaac’s teeth began to adjust for his expanding canines, the creature across from him crooned in understanding.

Isaac didn’t know if they were male, female, or neither, perhaps both, so beautiful they were. The packaging did nothing to conceal their hideous scent which overpowered even the newest dead in their graves. Now, walking in circles together at opposite sides of each other, each party studied the rival force. Isaac felt that something wasn’t right with how they moved. They seemed to float; their footsteps made no noise.

“Do you not know?” they asked.

_“Where is your mate?”_

“What did you mean?” Isaac demanded. “Mate?” His heart made the most frenetic music.

The stranger stopped then. They clasped their hands behind their back and stared at Isaac’s chest as if looking through it. Isaac covered the spot, and he backed toward the entrance, eyes wide as his palm protected his pulse.

He crashed into something— _someone_. The crypt was now an empty spread before him. It took little math to know that the body pressed behind him was that of the visitor, but how could it be? How had they moved without Isaac seeing it happen, and when had it happened, and what would come next? Isaac whirled around to see their face half-painted with light. The rest of their body seemed to be clothed in shadow.

“Do you know where Derek is?”

“I do not.”

“I don’t believe you,” Isaac said, traces of the wolf in his words.

“So destroy me. That mouth of yours surely can do it.”

And Isaac wanted to. Planned to. But the wolf wouldn’t come, though Isaac felt it disagree with the presence. He thought of Derek; licorice-scented spew; the single shift made in The Yard. Isaac didn’t know _how_ to change without the moon, regardless of this stranger’s beliefs.

“I see,” they said, later, after studying Isaac’s face with eyes that didn’t blink nor appear to move. “You are but a whelp, I must remember.”

 

Derek had hunted the astral intrusion until he could sense it no longer. With it gone, there was no need for him in this form, in this dimension. He let himself out through a portal connected to some small body of water outside Beacon Hills.

When the brook coughed him up, Derek dragged himself onto land. His body still felt like wind—not quite together despite its form—and moving it demanded much from his spirit. He spread on his back in the grass, began to recover. The sky swung whenever he tried to move.

Derek had never worked within the astral. Though he knew what his service required, he’d only ever dealt with threats that neared the mouths of his designated portals. The dark matter he’d been tracking was clever in seeking another way in, and it’d found one, and now this was deities’ work.

 _It happens,_ he said to himself. Still, the failure stung. Isaac was the most important breathing body on Earth—to Derek, at least—and this _thing_ was now among him. If not for the stipulation to stay out of higher beings’ way, Derek would be on all fours, hunting still.

He jerked to sit up. A bolt of pain curled him halfway over. Clutching his belly, he scrambled back to the shallow strip of water, his feet and muscled ass slick with mud. He heaved, then expelled what’d upset his stomach: black smoke. The remnants of his astral wolf dissolved into the night, leaving him hollow and hungry and clear enough to sense Isaac.

 

Isaac heard his father’s tires crunch across gravel. He shot a pleading look at what he’d come to believe was a ghoul, who still filled the crypt’s only entrance with their body.

“Isaac!” Mr. Lahey called.

“Please,” Isaac said. “It’s my dad.”

They took a step closer to the wolf.

“Don’t... _hurt_ him.”

The footsteps were rounding the corner. Boots broke dewy blades of grass. Isaac looked from the stranger’s face to the world outside the doorway, then his father was there, blocking the grass and tombstones.

Isaac was transported back to the closet with Derek. Here he was in this crypt that already felt too small for his body—that would send him into a panic without these distractions—and his father was now to catch him a second time.

Chest tight with the breath Isaac was holding, he watched his father as he peered into the dark of the chamber. The way his eyes searched the space, flicking from floor to wall, it appeared he couldn’t see his son, nor their visitor. Isaac shifted in place just enough to view him better. When he glanced to the creature between them, they were already watching him like he was some small prey.

“Well, who the hell’s here?” came the grumble from his father before he went on with his search of who came with the car. And then the stranger relaxed as if releasing the effort of magick. Isaac pushed back the violent threat of the shift.

“Are you one, then?” Isaac asked. “A vampire?”

The being before him tipped their head and nodded.

 

Derek’s discomfort receded with a shift and run through the woods and now he was back, presenting as human and streaked with dirt. This was the part about being a werewolf that made simple nudity awkward. The nearest community had to be several miles out.

He could have exited through his bathroom mirror. There was the shower, the bed, the boy; all of which promised comfort. It was just that his time in the astral made him feel unlike himself. He didn’t know how much time had passed in this third dimension compared to the minutes spent where it shimmered all over with spirits.

He didn’t know if Isaac would still be home.

Jogging through the woods, dick swinging, his feet breaking twigs, Derek followed the sudden scent of a camp. He ran up on a tent left behind by what smelled like one human couple who’d ditched their clothes to run off and hump in the dark, no doubt. After getting on the male’s loose jacket and jeans, Derek jammed his toes in the boots. They were too big. He clomped all the way to a neighboring road.

It was nothing to find a motel and snap the doorknob loose. He let himself in, extending his lupine senses.

 

“Are you frightened?” the vampire asked.

“No. I can kill you, you said it yourself.”

They appeared to smile. However, their lips hadn’t moved, and that bothered Isaac.

“I am Bodhi,” they said.

“Alright. Bodhi. Why did you ask about him? My—you called him….”

“Can you not say it? Or do you disbelieve it?” They hummed. “I think it’s that.”

Isaac’s body tingled with the impulse to dart around Bodhi, get from this crypt and into the crisp night air. He then remembered his father, who he knew was still roaming out there. If Bodhi’s tricks wouldn’t conceal him, what would he say if he were to get himself caught?

“I was inside his mind when I cleared us from him,” Bodhi said. “I saw what he did. Would you like for me to kill him?”

Isaac saw the light of his eyes in Bodhi’s.

“Another night, then.”

And they were gone, leaving Isaac with the putrid air of decay inside the crypt.

He ran. The ground vibrated beneath him, feet beating over graves he otherwise showed his respect for. He didn’t stop when he heard his father shout. He kept going when he slammed through the gate. It wasn’t until the bond with Derek bloomed back to life that he lost his footing and crashed into his car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy International Fanworks Day! Rep your fandom(s) below. What’s your favorite ship? When did you begin FF? How do you feel about the absence of vampires in the Teen Wolf universe and are you excited or just blah about Bodhi?


	18. Cinnamon and Cloves

When Isaac all but snatched the sliding door out of the wall, he expected Derek to be in their loft, waiting. He’d pictured it the whole race home: how Derek would jerk from his seat and greet him, scent him, smother his mouth with his lips. No such events came to pass. Isaac had already known, despite his wish for their reunion. The halls and stairs hadn’t smelled of his—

Both hands jabbed into his jeans pockets. One fished out the keys, which he tossed with disdain to the sofa, and the other shimmied out his dying phone.

_Are we mates?_

His thumb hovered over the send key. Instead, he erased that line and applied more heat, tapping out,

_Why didn’t you tell me we’re fucking mates?_

but that made him feel like a whimpering little bitch, so he wrote,

_I met a stupid vampire. Should’ve been there, “mate.”_

and then,

_MATE?_

“Fuck it.” Because everything sounded silly, and Isaac didn’t wish to discuss it like that. He wanted to face Derek with the curious information, see his eyes and hear his heart and know what was real, if _they_ were real.

Now he was just getting pissed. He felt the bond to Derek as clearly as he could his own pulse. It was back, so Derek had to be back, but he wasn’t in their home, nor had he called.

 _Does he not want me anymore? Should I move back in with my dad? What if he’s really_ not _back? What if he never_ comes _back?_

Isaac dropped to a seat in the armchair. Anger was a hot, wet mist against his eyes as he scrolled through the text thread between them. There wasn’t much. They’d messaged all of once—maybe twice—there having being little use for phone calls between them. But this was different. He thought Derek would at least say _something_ , considering how and when he’d just left.

School was in a few hours and Isaac decided he’d go tryout for the lacrosse team. It satisfied him to know this minor defiance could piss Derek off, then maybe Derek would grasp how it was to have no control. So what he had himself a fancy career? Derek’s place was with Isaac at all times.

 

One cool shower grounded Derek. Now that he felt sealed inside his body, simple functions didn’t exhaust him nor make him fall dizzy. He toweled at his hair in the mirror and thought of The Three Favors he’d take. He was hungry, but he needed proper clothes, a car, and cash. He needed to get back home to Isaac.

Isaac…. Probably wearing his new clothes, outside being seen in them and admired in them before even Derek was able to do it. He’d wear them to school today. Then, the faerie Isaac had smelled would sit on his lap and touch his hair and tell him he was absolutely stunning. Derek decided what The Three Favors would be. It was just a matter of dipping back in the astral.

Still soft from his shower, Derek lifted his hand toward the mirror. His fingers grazed glass before being sucked into the portal, a cool and slippery world on the other side.

Not that he felt he deserved them, he pictured his rewards for his work. This was guaranteed at the end of each job assigned to a Sentinel whether or not they were able to smother a threat. Having done this numerous times, he knew things like _peas are counted as one, but a satchel of rubies is considered several._ Mindfulness was to be applied when manifesting a meal; even the plate took place as a Favor.

A whole cooked chicken filled better than a steak, so Derek took hold of that and pulled it out first. He set it on a towel in the sink and licked his greasy, seasoned fingers clean before diving back in the mirror.

Next, he envisioned a pair of boots his size. Those were counted as one since they were a set. The final Favor was panties he’d give to Isaac.

Derek admired the patterns of black lace. Once back at the loft, he’d draw Isaac a bath of goat’s milk and rose petals and feed him cake. Then he’d fuck him into the floor after dressing him in the panties, punching a hole right through them with his dick. 

He sat on the bathroom tile with the cloth full of chicken between his legs. The panties were draped on the sink across from his face.

 

Isaac woke from a nap he hadn’t planned. It was good that he did; there was only an hour window for him to reach school.

He stared at himself in the mirror while brushing his teeth, rehearsing the things he’d say to Derek and how he’d act once he got home. He was going to wear some new clothes today, perhaps even glaze his throat and wrists with Derek’s strawberry seed oil. _Pretty_ had become his favorite way to see himself and it was time for him to show others, too.

The first person to notice him was the girl who smelled like cinnamon and cloves. She’d parked her little Toyota moments before Isaac pulled up into the only other spot on the lot. When he got out, looming well over Derek’s Camaro, her red lips fell apart in shock.

“Wow.” She rounded the car to get to the driver’s side. “You’re gorgeous. When did you get so gorgeous? Wait—you have a boyfriend. I’ve seen him pick you up, that explains it.”

Isaac shook his head, though he couldn’t keep the smile caged inside.

“So he _is_ your boyfriend,” she went on, keeping up with his stride on much shorter legs, “right? I mean, of course he is, just look at you. You are now my gay best friend, you can—”

“I’m not gay,” Isaac interrupted.

“Oh?”

“I like girls, too.”

“Okay, well, you’ll be my _bisexual_ best friend. I’m Lydia.” She cut in front of Isaac to block his path and extended her hand for a shake. “And you’re Isaac. We have a class together. Which we’re going to now.”

She looped her arm around his and strutted with pride beside him, all the way into the school. Through the halls, Isaac’s lupine sense of hearing informed him of just about every delighted opinion. After school—after a lunch and library date with the redhead—he met on the field to try for lacrosse.

Lydia watched from the benches—though she couldn’t keep out of her phone—and Isaac felt his chest twist for Derek. He wanted him there, to catch him and scold him or shock him with sudden support. Either were preferred to this.

Isaac didn’t dwell on Derek for long, so engrossed he was in performing on the field for Coach’s approval. Catching the balls was nothing and he could dodge without missing a step. His werewolf agility earned him much attention. It wasn’t until a horrible roar soaked the afternoon air that Isaac’s acrobatics came to a stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lysaac? Yes. One of my favorite scenes in TW is when Isaac caught the arrow before it hit Lydia. I hadn’t intended to introduce any other characters into this fic, let alone have it be as plotty as it’s become, but I’m enjoying it so much that I can’t care. When I write, the characters tell me where to go, and Isaac and Derek both invited Lydia. I’m excited to see how she fits in!


	19. The Alpha Roar

Isaac hadn’t learned of the Alpha Roar. Still, he knew what it meant when it vibrated through him.

He kneeled and stabbed his crosse through the grass. Behind the helmet, his eyes were flickering gold and his teeth, large in his mouth, showed past his lips. Derek was _calling_ him. And it wasn’t just that. The howl summoned the wolf, and the wolf was coming.

Isaac’s potential teammates began to close in around him, their audible concern ringing his ears. They couldn’t see him like this—Isaac knew that much—but was he to bolt from the field and risk such embarrassment? And what about tryouts? If he left now, before they were even completed, he would—

The sudden arch of his spine took his attention. Isaac had to move away from all these ignorant people and flee to a place he could shift in, safe and unseen. Struggling up on his feet with Derek’s Roar still coursing through him, he tipped his head to hide his gleaming eyes. He was grateful that most of his peers were searching the sky for the source of that sound as he shoved his way through the crowd toward the benches.

“I need,” he tried with Lydia, but talking, he found, made him too loose. He felt the wolf would snake its way from his mouth and plop to the ground for all to see its white-gold fur. “I need you to drive.”

“But you have a—wait. Are you okay? Because you don’t look okay.”

She got down. Isaac shifted back, concealing himself.

“I need you to _follow the wolf_ ,” he gritted out.

“Oh-kay? Is that like, code? For something? Because I’m gonna need—”

Isaac revealed himself then. He grabbed her wrist and snatched her into his space, glowing eyes and bleeding gums shocking the silence into her mouth.

“I need you. To do it.”

He fled with the image of Lydia’s green irises shrinking in size, ripping the helmet off on his way to the lot.

It was empty. But for a few faculty members and those who hung back for sports, no one spent their time at school after school. He settled himself between Derek’s and Lydia’s cars, hoping this shelter would do for his transformation.

Which it had to. The itch of his fur bursting up had already cloaked him. He heard Lydia running toward him through the chaos of sounds as he fumbled to peel off his uniform to preserve it. She yelled his name; was behind him now. So she would not only see the wolf, but _witness this, too,_ and Isaac could do nothing at all to stop it.

“Oh my God!” She went on repeating it. And then it was shrinking away behind the crunch of durable bone, and Isaac becoming the wolf, and Derek needing him.

Isaac left the lot in one leap. In his peripheral, he saw Lydia slamming the door of her car before backing out—before the scene beside him was only trees. Derek howled again from the indeterminable distance. Isaac slid to a stop and threw back his head.

 

When Derek heard Isaac respond to him like a proper pack wolf, Derek nearly returned to human form. He felt flimsy in his lupine body. He imagined the skin would drip from his back to the ground. The clothes he’d worn—and the boots—were in a stack against a tree and he wanted back inside those manmade things.

Waiting at the top of the hill that overlooked a road, Derek’s eyes flicked to each passing car. How would Isaac come? Would he be in Derek’s Camaro? Hitched a ride with a friend at school— _does he have those?_ Each time the wolf’s head gave a curious tilt, the wind attempted to nudge it back upright. But then Isaac was howling again, and the call was nearer now, just beyond where Derek could see with his special sight.

Isaac came up bolting along the opposite side of the road with a car cruising not far behind him. Derek’s ears and tail stood up at once. Were they hunting him? Why had he exposed himself like this? Shifting around on his paws, eyes trained on his pup, Derek huffed a rough, warning sound.

Isaac stopped. The car slowed to an imperceivable crawl. Derek watched the younger wolf seek his vocalization until his head, fluffy and light, lifted to Derek’s.

When they crashed into each other several feet from the pile of clothes, Derek felt the transformation approach. Deep within the wolf, there were words and feelings for Isaac he couldn’t get out even with their canid intelligence. Isaac licked Derek’s muzzle, even fell into a few play bows, happy to see him and showing it well in that body. Derek, however, noticed that Isaac’s ears weren’t flat. He wasn’t slumped or shrinking in size for his Alpha. Feeling a sudden displeasure strike the pit of his rumbling chest, Derek’s snout wrinkled, showing teeth.

They shifted together in a blanket of leaves. Derek’s hand was splayed on Isaac’s chest where his paw had been, as Isaac had transformed first with the help of the Roar. He looked to Isaac’s face; grimacing still. He was gripping Derek’s wrist enough to hurt him.

“Don’t rush,” Derek said, letting Isaac do it as he settled from the pain of the shift. “You came. You’re here. You did good.”

Because Isaac _had_ come. He _had_ received Derek’s order and he’d changed, then traveled the miles to connect. Still, Derek couldn’t release his concern for the lack of submission. Isaac hadn’t submitted to Derek once.

Derek watched as Isaac began to thaw on the ground. His grip on Derek’s wrist also relaxed. Now, they were two naked male human bodies circled by trees and the quiet in which they should speak.

Isaac finally pushed up on his forearms. He wet his rosy lips and looked into Derek.

“Derek?”

“Isaac?”

“Am I still pretty? Because I’m not your beta anymore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, lovers! I thought I’d have the energy to write this last week, but I’ve been healing from my surgery for endometriosis—among other things. It’s about time these two reunited though, huh? I for one was ready chapters ago.


	20. Wolf-light and Tears

Leaves were tickling Isaac’s ass in a bad way but they weren’t enough to break him from this moment. He relished Derek’s reactions. To know he had the power to move an Alpha so emotionally caused a foreign swell of satisfaction.

And Derek was still scowling. His eyes were searing red. _Not your beta_ had succeeded to touch him. “Yes,” Isaac said, driving it deeper. “I know what we are. It makes us equals. Doesn’t it?”

Derek shook his head; started to stand. His breath caught when Isaac yanked him back down.

“Doesn’t it?” he asked as he laid back under Derek, as Derek held himself up with his arms.

“You don’t know anything.”

“I do.”

Derek opened his mouth to launch his retort, then snapped it shut at the sound of someone approaching.

“It’s Lydia,” Isaac said. He gripped Derek’s wrists to keep him near. “We can trust her.”

But Derek was older, Alpha, and full of the strength he’d been born with. He freed himself of the cuffs with liquid ease.

Isaac rolled to his belly as Derek stood above him, his feet at both sides of Isaac’s waist. Together, they watched Lydia’s feet glue to the ground. Her bright hair whipped in the wind around her.

“Sorry!” Said as she shielded her eyes. Isaac folded his arms along the leaves. “I didn’t see anything, not even the weird, impossible-to-exist wolfy stuff.”

Isaac imagined Derek’s arms folding, too. 

“Just...don’t...eat me?”

“Eat you,” Derek and Isaac repeated.

Lydia scissored her fingers so she could peer through the space with one eye. Derek kicked out a sigh, then stepped over Isaac. He gathered the clothes. After zipping the jeans, he tossed the jacket on Isaac’s back like a blanket.

Isaac felt immediately protected. He recalled their time at The Yard and Derek’s words on their being tender after a shift. If not for the jacket, Derek and Lydia both would see the blush on his back and ass. Derek, however, didn’t need to see. He could smell—feel—things that Lydia simply could not. At Isaac’s arousal, Derek glared over his shoulder.

 

He had Isaac on the ground, fucking supple. He had Lydia—the faerie, so said his nose. Their secret was revealed to this tiny, gorgeous stranger and Derek didn’t know where to begin.

“I asked her to drive,” Isaac offered; voice small. “So we’d have a ride home….”

Like he knew that he’d done wrong.

Like he knew that Derek may decide to punish him.

While Derek had imagined Isaac spread across his knees, he’d already thought that hitting could be a trigger. And that was one of several things they’d yet to come to discuss with their time together having been short as it was.

_“I know what we are.”_

“Where’s the car?” he asked Lydia. He’d deal with them both later, at the loft.

When they reached it, Derek opened the passenger door for Isaac. “Since you’re wearing a dress,” he said, humor coating the edge in his voice at this even having to happen in the first place. Isaac, hands in the pockets of the green, fleece jacket, forced it down to attempt to hide his ass.

“Not so fast,” Lydia interrupted. She rushed around to the back, where Derek saw a pile of sporting goods on the seat.

“So you did it anyway,” he said in Isaac’s ear. The defiance—the blatant disregard.

 

They returned to Beacon Hills High in total silence. Isaac avoided Derek’s eyes in the rearview mirror and focused instead on the jersey under his sac.

He smelled _everything_ : Derek’s sweat; Lydia’s discomfort. There was even Isaac’s blended odor. He had to admit, in the car, cramped together with poor circulation, their combined scent was almost sweet.

When they reached the lot, he dressed in his clothes he’d worn to school that morning. He shut Derek’s trunk after stuffing it with the gear he’d return tomorrow. Derek was pressing close, though his gaze was fixed on Lydia, whose chin was raised to belie the panic she felt.

“You’re coming with us,” Derek said.

“It’s a school night,” she countered. “My parents expect me home.”

“You don’t look like a girl with a curfew. Isaac’s driving your car. You can ride with me or stay with your new little friend here.”

Lydia sat beside Isaac, stiff and uncomfortable.

“He wants to make sure you don’t talk,” Isaac said. 

“Well that’s apparent.”

Isaac braked at a red light behind Derek.

“You know,” Lydia said, “it doesn’t surprise me. Humans can’t _possibly_ be all there is in this world, or even the universe. I mean, think about it. Alien abductions. Faerie tales. There has to be some truth behind these things.”

At _faerie_ , Isaac flicked his gaze along her body. The light flashed green. They drove to the loft.

“Pizza will be here in 30. Til then”—Derek tossed his phone to the couch—“sit.”

Isaac joined Lydia there while Derek sat across from them on the coffee table. Lydia crossed her legs and folded her hands over her knee.

“I’m Derek. This is my home. That is my beta.” He didn’t look at Isaac, though Isaac flushed warm at the lie. “And this is our secret.”

Lydia cleared her throat; nodded.

“If you tell anyone what you saw or about what we are, I will kill your friends. I will kill your family. I will kill you.”

 

Derek and Lydia stared down one another. He learned several things about her then: she was brave; she was smart; and she wouldn’t back down with intimidation. Sure, two werewolves had her caged within their home, but Lydia was prepared to take what came.

Isaac—whose gaze had driven through Derek’s cheek—at last turned his eyes to settle on Lydia. In the time Isaac would spend looking her over, Derek stole a glance at his messy curls and the dirt streaked at his throat.

He clenched his teeth and looked the other way. Isaac was even more beautiful now than he’d been just two days prior. Which, to Derek, had only felt like moments, but to Isaac…. Isaac had to live out every second of his absence as it passed in this dimension’s flow of time.

He wanted him.

He wanted Isaac how Isaac craved Derek, _and fuck_ , the panties were tucked down in his jeans pocket. They had all night to do or not do each other, which Derek reminded himself of when he heard Lydia.

“Fuck it. I’m a _Banshee_ , so...I’m not exactly _interested_ in smearing your little secret all throughout Beacon Hills.”

“Banshee?” Isaac. So young. So uninformed.

“You had to at least have watched Charmed. It’s on Netflix. They got it all wrong, but….”

Derek tuned out Lydia’s lesson in Banshee history as Isaac’s scent continued to flood Derek full. While Isaac had shifted and now smelled of his wolf and the woods, the clothes he’d worn to school were scented with strawberry. With Isaac back in them, the oil in their threads were sticking all over his body. He wanted then to swallow Isaac whole.

Isaac had to know. In the middle of Lydia saying, “because we literally _scream_ when someone close to us will die—or wail, but anyway,” Isaac stood and leaned toward Derek.

“Can you come with me to the bathroom? Please?”

 

It had come over Isaac in such a hurry, not that it’d ever left him from the moment he’d shifted in the leaves with Derek. But they were home now. Derek was back, looking older and wiser and more ripped than he’d been just Saturday. And Isaac wanted at least a kiss. He needed it.

“Please?” he asked again. Then Derek was excusing them, and Isaac was leading the way—with haste—to the bathroom.

Derek locked the door. Isaac backed himself against the sink.

“Are you mad at me?” 

“About what?” Derek asked. He slid his hands to the sink at both sides of Isaac. “You trying out for lacrosse, even though I told you not to?”

“You were gone, so….”

“So you disobeyed me? Because I was gone? I’m still your Alpha, Isaac. You’re still pack— _my_ pack. You do what _I_ say.”

Isaac’s temper thrashed. He was strong again with Derek, not frail and sick as he’d been when Derek left. He’d argue the equality of mates, challenge his Alpha—but then he’d have to go through the trouble of Bodhi. _Not with Lydia here._ He felt they needed privacy for that. So, he lowered his eyes, gave Derek his submission. Who’s to say that Bodhi hadn’t lied?

“Of course,” Isaac said. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m only protecting you.”

“But I did good. You should’ve seen me.”

“I believe you. But lacrosse is a contact sport, and no matter what you believe about what we are, you’re still a pup. You don’t have that kind of control yet. And you’ve gotta trust me,” he said, moving his head to follow Isaac’s when Isaac turned his own to look away, “to teach you.”

 _But are we mates or_ not _?_ How long could Isaac seal his questions in? He wasn’t afforded the time to sulk and dwell on his decision, as Derek had stamped his lips to Isaac’s neck.

 

“You smell good,” Derek said to Isaac’s throat. He nuzzled it. Tasted it again. Isaac came undone beneath his mouth.

They kissed, sucking each other’s lips and passing licks over tongues, with Derek prying away only to breathe. Isaac sank his hands in Derek’s stolen pair of jeans and circled them around Derek’s dick.

“I’m still soft,” Isaac said. “We can...I mean, I want to. And if you do, we don’t have to wait for the full moon.” He then flashed a pleading look. “Don’t you?”

Isaac gave a punctuating squeeze. Yes, Derek had thought of it after Isaac’s body settled post-shift. Because of course Isaac was soft. Of course he’d want to mate after that. He gripped Isaac’s nape to draw him close and went at his lips again for several open-mouthed, hungry kisses. Isaac stroked along the tip of Derek’s heavy erection before sliding off the sink to turn to face it.

Derek kneeled behind Isaac and worked down his jeans. He’d relished the sight of Isaac’s ass exposed beneath the jacket and had craved to taste and fuck it ever since. Hugging Isaac’s legs, he slid his mouth, then his tongue, between his Isaac’s cheeks.

 _“Yes,”_ Isaac croaked.

Derek rumbled. He sucked and bit Isaac’s ass before returning his mouth to the ring, where he pressed a series of wet, intimate kisses. Isaac shoved back when Derek darted his tongue against him. His moans were hoarse as Derek licked him open. He needed this, needed Isaac bent over this very sink, giving his ass to Derek to have his way with. But while he loved the crooning and how Isaac tensed with bliss, Derek’s balls were weighing him down to the tile.

Pushing up through the haze of Isaac’s pheromones on his face, Derek stood, pressing his chest against Isaac.

“You gonna be quiet?”

_“Yes.”_

He loved that Isaac’s voice was still rough. In the mirror, as Derek reached to the mounted shelf for a bottle, Isaac’s eyes glowed with wolf-light and tears.

 

It was almond oil. Isaac only caught the greasy corner of the label, but he’d smelled it when testing for scents to wear this morning. It perfumed the bathroom now as Derek dunked it all over himself, the sound of him slicking his cock quite painfully sexy.

When Derek fit himself in, Isaac sprang up on his toes, feeling himself being filled—whining about it. Derek brought him down with his hands at Isaac’s waist and Isaac hung his head as he clenched what’d impaled him.

Derek kissed Isaac’s shoulder. His hands smoothed beneath Isaac’s shirt. When he edged back just enough to draw out several buried inches, Isaac couldn’t help the full moan.

“Want her to hear it? Hear me fucking you, knowing that’s what I’m doing?”

Isaac shook his head in disbelief. The horror of someone hearing him in such a vulnerable state plugged a strange sensation deep within his groin.

Slapping a hand to the wall, Isaac’s bright eyes rolled shut. He pressed his head on his arm, bit his lip to keep in the sounds, though nothing seemed enough to make him quiet. Derek was hitting him in a new way at this angle. The Yard had been delicious, cheek pressed against grass, but then there hadn’t been any oil between them.

Derek grabbed Isaac by the hair to tug him up. His other arm locked around Isaac’s neck. Now unable to hide, Isaac was forced to look in the mirror at the way Derek’s jaw went tight as he fucked him.

He had never felt so overwhelmed.

Yes, Isaac was taller—even if only by two inches—but as it’d been, Derek was sure when he handled him. Isaac’s hands squeezed at both Derek’s wrist and forearm, holding on as the impact rocked the sink.

“I want you to keep it inside you,” Derek said when it was finished, looking up at Isaac from the floor. He was zipping Isaac’s jeans, sealing him in with the seed that was already trickling from his hole.


	21. Pretty When You Cry

The moment Derek turned to open the bathroom door, a wailing rush of wind rattled the loft. He and Isaac hurried back toward the living space, but all they found of Lydia was her clothes.

“I still have her keys,” Isaac said.

“She won’t need them. Might already be home.”

When the pizza came, Derek smacked Isaac’s hand when it reached for a slice. “Alpha eats first,” he explained.

“Then that would mean we’d eat together, wouldn’t it?”

Derek narrowed his eyes as Isaac proceeded to snatch up his food.

“Besides,” Isaac said while he chewed. “You never gave me that rule before and we’ve eaten together plenty of times. You even fed me first once.”

And he sat on the coffee table, a pleased look on his face, the stars still in his eyes from getting fucked.

Derek was amazed by Isaac’s gall. Isaac had to challenge each event of his lycanthropy, yet something about this trait made Derek hard. Derek knew he’d need to bond with a partner who could match him. He didn’t want a timid, tolerant mate. But then he hadn’t planned to make a mate of Isaac—or anyone. This thing, well, it’d accidentally happened.

Which Derek was fighting. Which he’d _been_ fighting. Because how could it truly be, in such short time, with so little history between them?

They ate until nothing was left to distract them from each other. Isaac, heavy with food, slid to the couch.

“Eyes too big?” Derek’s voice was sweet. He pushed up the tail of Isaac’s new but wrinkled shirt, exposing skin to kiss the small of his back.

“So much has happened.”

“I know.”

“I’m tired.”

“I know, Isaac. It’s okay.”

“It’s not….”

Derek thought he’d heard the tears in his voice. He nuzzled Isaac’s back before moving to sit beside him on what little space was left at the edge of the couch.

 

“What happened?” Isaac asked. “Where’d you go?”

“There was a serious threat. It was in the astral searching for a way to sneak into this dimension without the use of the portals we protect, so they summoned me.”

“Summoned you?”

“Yes. It was beyond my control, and it’s never happened to me before so I didn’t tell you that it could, but it did. And I’m sorry it scared you.”

Isaac swallowed. He kept his face hidden between his arm and the cushion, now afraid to face all this with no buffer. It was just them, back in the loft, where so much time seemed to have passed but really, they hadn’t been there long. None of this had been long. And yet, Isaac felt it’d been forever.

“Isaac.”

He tensed.

“Why are you crying?”

“Because I feel like shit when you’re gone. I feel like _shit_.”

Derek was quiet.

“Like I can’t do anything right. Like I’m _weak_ , and I thought I wasn’t, I was really starting to think that, but it came back.”

“What came back? Isaac.” Derek touched his back where he’d kissed him. “Will you look at me?”

Isaac blinked out the tears. He didn’t want to do it, fearful that some time soon, Derek would refuse to give what he needed. Still, he pushed up on his forearms. Derek slid from the couch, kneeling beside it.

“That black stuff. I threw up again and...that’s what it was. Like before.”

“And you think that makes you weak?”

The tears were still sticking in Isaac’s throat.

“Remember that day in your room, when I told you that why you couldn’t heal was because it was all in your head? That’s this,” Derek said. “We may not be magickal in the way humans think of magick, but we are. Our bodies deal with life differently. You feel weak because of trauma from your dad. It’s a lot to deal with, and we _will_ deal with it, but you’re not broken. You’re not doing anything wrong.”

“So I’m throwing up licorice because of what I think of myself? What I feel?” Isaac shook his head and he scowled. “I couldn’t heal because I imagined I’m not strong enough to do it? That could get me killed.”

“What happened before the first time you started coughing it up?”

Isaac swallowed. His voice dropped low as he remembered. “You had just bit me.”

“And?”

“And then my dad came in the bathroom when I was showering. He roughed me up and….”

“Then when did it happen? _After_ your dad locked you in the freezer. And now it’s happened again when I left you alone. You feel helpless. You feel unprotected. You feel like you don’t have any power. And licorice root is often used in spells meant for power over others.”

Something shifted in Isaac. He’d been, in a literal sense, expelling the presence of power from his own body.

 

When Isaac started to settle, Derek wrapped his fingers over his waist. Not too far was the hidden crack of Isaac’s cum-filled ass, which, paired with the tears, made him feel crazed.

“Stay here,” Derek said as he stood. It wasn’t too late for the bath he’d imagined them taking. Once he prepared the tub with pink salt and powdered goat milk, he returned to the couch to find Isaac asleep.

“But why do we have to shower first?” Isaac asked when Derek ushered them in. He folded his arms on the wall to rest his head, water spraying over his back and Derek’s hand between his cheeks.

Derek watched as Isaac blushed all over when he said, “Push it out,” though not much was left of his seed. Isaac’s new jeans were stained with fresh, wet streaks, and sticky shapes were left along his legs.

In the tub, they sat at opposite sides to look at each other. A spotlight from the moon covered them both. The white, salty water wasn’t bland without the petals he’d decided he would add at the motel. They rested their arms on the edge of the tub, soaking in silence awhile before Derek felt Isaac’s toes graze his thigh.

“You said you had one serious relationship,” Isaac said. His voice, dulcet and kind, rang through the room. “And that it was bad.”

“It was.”

“Is that why you don’t want to be my mate?”

Derek arched in the tub in time with Isaac’s hunching body, a bolt of affection surging through their bond. Isaac jammed his palm in his chest and laughed at his end of the tub as he recovered.

“That’s….” Derek was petting over his own racing heart. “Kate, she….”

How could he explain it? He sighed, sweeping his hand through his hair.

“She was a hunter. She tricked me. She killed my family; my pack.”

Isaac stared at him. Derek, surprising himself, was brave enough to stare right back.

“She burned down the house,” he continued. “They were inside. I wasn’t.”

Derek let out a bitter laugh. He wanted to be like Isaac: soft and weepy. He wanted to feel things like that; rather, be able to show things like that. It was just that, that part of his past left him hollow. He scrubbed his face and propped an elbow up when Isaac came, crowding into the space between Derek’s legs.

“Thank you,” Isaac said. “For telling me.”

 

Isaac was cautious, but Derek accepted his kiss. Whatever had happened between them when the word _mate_ dropped spoke enough to what they were. It had confirmed it. Excited as he was, however, Isaac wouldn’t push. He wanted—needed—Derek to trust him.

Later, when it had calmed in both their bond and bodies, Derek surprised Isaac by bringing it up.

“It happened in the closet.”

Isaac froze. His hands squeezed the rim of the tub.

“When bites are exchanged in a short amount of time, and I mean _seconds_ , there’s a chance a mating bond will form. The wolves must already have feelings for each other, or else the bond won’t take.”

Isaac opened his mouth. Before he could get out the words—

“But Isaac. Once we both acknowledge that the mating bond exists, that it unites us, it….”

_It what?_

“It activates. It becomes real; whole. And it’s mating season. Every mating season, once a year, mated pairs have heats and ruts.”

The room now smelled of their mingled lust. It poured into their bath, stirred the salty, milky water, which Isaac promised to tease about later. Because who kept _goat’s milk_ , especially someone like Derek? And yet it was perfect. That they were sharing these things in such a way had Isaac swiping at his eyes.

Derek reached to draw him back to his body. “You’re pretty when you cry,” he gently said.

“So we are?” Isaac asked. He wanted the activation, wanted to have this thing with Derek and only him.

_And what are ruts? And why was my wolf very tall in The Yard, but regular-sized earlier with Lydia? And were you ever gonna tell me? And how did Bodhi know before I did? And who the fuck is Bodhi, anyway?_

But Isaac didn’t want to distract from the question. They had time to have these other talks. “Are we _mates_?” he asked again, a desperate lilt to his voice. His face had twisted as if he were pained.

Derek swallowed hard. His teeth seemed to grit. “Yes,” he later said. “But how did you know?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot be the only one who loves that song. Can I? Wow, look at their progress. I am _touched_.


	22. Goat’s Milk

Isaac couldn’t lie. It wasn’t just that they laid bare in the tub. Derek had confessed intimate things, things that Isaac hadn’t imagined being the bedrock of his fears. And maybe it was all in Isaac’s head—the grip of their bond—but the mere idea of dishonesty made him sick.

He gathered himself. Derek’s face was still close to his, and he still kneeled between Derek’s legs. When Derek nudged Isaac’s cheek with his nose, Isaac slid his hands in Derek’s hair.

“Someone came to me,” Isaac said. He laughed—a light chime of air—when Derek kissed him. “The first thing they said when they saw me was, ‘Where is your mate?’ Like they knew you.”

Derek eased back. “Another werewolf?”

“...A vampire.”

Isaac licked the water from his lips and studied Derek as Derek’s arms circled around him. The sound of the bath lapping against their bodies soothed Isaac as he awaited Derek’s reaction.

“What else did they say?”

“Not much. Mainly went back and forth about you. I had asked them if they knew where you were and when they said they didn’t, and I said I didn’t believe them, they told me I could destroy them with my mouth, if that was the case. Which it was, I guess. But I don’t know how to shift without…. Anyway.” Isaac hid his face in Derek’s neck. “My dad was there. At the cemetery.”

Derek’s entire body flexed around Isaac. When he asked if Isaac’s father had seen him there, Derek’s voice was stiff with restraint.

“No. They covered us with a trick so my dad couldn’t see us. He looked right through us, like we weren’t even there. Something was...odd...about them. The way they moved…. They had this... _presence_ ….”

 

Derek digested this. He didn’t want to arouse himself nor Isaac, though these emotions would still pass between them. This visitor had come while Derek was gone. He’d appeared when Derek lost the threat in the astral. Could they be what Derek had hunted? Was a vampire not the quintessential dark matter? Demons knew things, and this creature not only knew Derek but that they were mates. He knew the right place to meet with Isaac.

“You don’t have to be in the wolf’s body to bite them. To kill them,” Derek said. “We just tend to avoid them when we’re not.”

“Why?”

“They have too many powers. We’re vulnerable to vampires like this.”

Isaac’s heart skipped.

“They’re faster than us when we’re not the wolf.”

“So how do we beat them?” Isaac asked.

“Vampires avoid werewolf territory. They’re exposed in the day, and they know how well we can hunt them and find them when they can’t escape into the sun. For one to be here….”

“Derek. What is it?”

“They’re either very old and capable of such power they’re not threatened by us on our territory or they’re not a vampire at all. Masquerading as a vampire, maybe, but why?” He searched Isaac’s face. “What would they want with you? Or me?”

Silence. They released the matter to sink in the tub. When Derek let out the water, it went with it and the milk and salt down the drain.

Derek dried Isaac off, and then Isaac dried Derek, and after, they poured into bed. Isaac was staring out at the sky through the windows when Derek rolled to face him.

“I’ll get you through your rut,” he said.

Isaac’s response was belated, like he had to process the vocabulary before registering what Derek’s words meant. Then, “That’s what you’re thinking about? Fucking me. When a vampire may like to eat me.”

Derek smiled in the dark as soft as Isaac had spoken.

“And you. They could eat you, too.”

“ _They_ aren’t a problem I can deal with right now. Your rut— _our_ ruts—are. They’re gonna come, Isaac. Soon. We’ve realized the mating bond.”

Isaac blinked at the night. His eyes were bright and sleepy the same as they’d been after he’d gorged on pizza.

“Are you listening to me?”

“Is it painful?”

Derek felt as if his heart were wrung.

“I just don’t want to hurt,” Isaac said. “I’m tired of hurting.”

 

When the alarm woke them both, Isaac sat up with a sigh. “I hate having to go to school the day after I shift.”

Derek, who was supine with one arm folded under his head, reached his other hand to Isaac’s back. Isaac liked it. He recalled the kiss there and decided this was his favorite place to be touched.

“You don’t have to.”

“I have Lydia’s car,” Isaac said.

“So you’ll take it to her. Ride with her to school, figure out where her head is. I’ll meet you there and bring you back home.”

 _Home._ The thought of this being theirs was becoming more natural for Isaac. It also caused an insidious state of anxiety.

“What?”

“My dad. Seeing him the other day, it….”

“Okay,” Derek said. “If you want—if you’re ready—we’ll go to him later.”

Isaac wasn’t ready. He didn’t _want_ , not really. And yet he felt he had to, as Lahey was still his father and the only family Isaac had left.

“He wasn’t always like this,” Isaac said. He didn’t know why he said it—what did it matter now?—but it felt right to say to Derek.

After texting Lydia for her address, Isaac pulled on his clothes; some new ones. When he parked outside her house, she pranced from the door to her car.

Isaac stepped out to meet her. She whipped out a gloss and shined her lips, bending over to see herself in the window.

“Shouldn’t have to get but so low,” Isaac said from where he leaned against the hood. “Being so short, as it is.”

“We can’t control our heritable genetic factors but we _can_ knee someone’s nuts to cut them down to size. Now. Keys.”

She held out her hand. Isaac dropped the keys on her palm.

 

Derek was still thinking about the vampire when he pulled up across the street from the school. Buses and traveling students filed in, but not even they could distract him from this mess.

 _Why was Isaac at the cemetery, anyway?_ Did he think Derek would be there, that he’d find him camping out with the dead? He rubbed his eyes. He’d have to consult his guides, perhaps even leave Isaac again—for however long—to do whatever must be done.

“Mates.” Derek sighed. “Fuck.”

Because he still couldn’t believe it, or how little it took to go against his word and have sex with Isaac. And maybe it never mattered how much Derek said they’d wait. Their pull to each other was sealed since the closet.

Then there was Lydia. Isaac liked her and she liked Isaac. When they sat beside each other on the couch last night, Derek saw the way they simply meshed. His temperature rose as he thought of it—how Isaac had texted her phone as if it were normal. That they had each other at school all day while Derek waited at home bothered him more than he imagined anything could.

Lydia parked beside him and Isaac got out. Derek rolled down the passenger window.

“Dinner tonight,” Lydia said. “My house.”

She was off before Derek opened his mouth to respond.

“I don’t like her,” Derek said when Isaac got in. Isaac looked over Derek. He smiled.

“A few splashes of goat’s milk will clear that right up.”

They stared at each other. Derek snorted a laugh. “Fuck you.”


	23. Enchanted

“So,” Derek prompted, meeting eyes with Isaac at the light. “What’d she say?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing. The entire ride.”

“She wants to talk at dinner,” Isaac said.

Derek quieted. At breakfast, which he and Isaac stopped for at a McDonald’s, Derek was rigid and wore a pinched expression.

“Derek?”

He jammed his mouth full of sausage.

“Is something wrong?” Isaac asked.

“Nothing at all.”

“It’s Lydia. Isn’t it? You really don’t like her.”

“I said it’s nothing.” As he flicked his gaze at all but Isaac. “And stop... _analyzing_ me.”

Isaac’s fork made a plastic _clank_ on his tray. He shoved it away and folded his arms on the table.

“Look. I’m sorry,” Derek said.

“She’s just some girl.”

“But she—”

“I hardly even know her,” Isaac said, kind but desperate. 

Derek avoided his eyes. He couldn’t stand the way Isaac sounded, like perhaps he’d had to use this voice with his father. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I was stupid. Please, eat. I know you’re hungry.”

Besides, Isaac had chosen this spot—despite Derek deeming it trash—insisting that breakfast was the best it offered.

When they pulled up to Isaac’s legal residence, Isaac got out the instant Derek parked. His father’s car was there, two spaces up from Derek’s ride, and Derek felt it’d be satisfying to break it. Something had to pay for how this day had gotten started. Isaac hadn’t spoken since at the table. 

 

“He changed the locks.” Isaac’s laugh ripped out of him short and harsh. He snatched the keys from the door. His back banged Derek’s chest when he retreated.

“You’re a werewolf,” Derek said. “Just rip it open.”

Isaac hadn’t quite thought of that. Glad that Derek couldn’t see the heat which pinked his face, he launched himself up the steps with one foot and broke the front door open.

They went in. Isaac’s boots were heavy on the wood in the unusual darkness of the house. Derek’s thudded behind him, these calculated steps, like the older wolf was hunting—hunting with Isaac.

Before being carried off by the pleasant feeling of pack, Isaac threw out his arm to block Derek’s path.

“I smell it, too,” Derek said. They traded looks, frozen where they stood.

But it couldn’t be. Not here, like this, after Isaac had just seen him at the cemetery. His father had called his name. He’d searched for him. Isaac darted his gaze around and swallowed.

“I want to do it alone,” Isaac said. “Find him, I mean. Like that.”

He looked again to Derek. After a beat of time, Derek nodded.

 

Derek didn’t leave the house, however. When Isaac pressed on, a flare of protective instincts rushed through Derek. He balled his fists, fighting his urge to follow. He knew what it was like to come upon deceased family and Derek didn’t want that pain for Isaac. And yet, he had to respect him, honor his beta’s— _mate’s_ —explicit wishes.

Then he heard Isaac utter a word. He picked up his feet, moving until he stepped in Isaac’s space, where Isaac stood across the table from….

Derek’s fist curled in Isaac’s shirt, snatching him back and shifting to posture in the spot Isaac had stood. At the table, Mr. Lahey was seated beside a creature he was certain was this _Bodhi_.

“Dad...?” 

The stranger watched Isaac with ease.

“What did you do to him?” Isaac demanded. He rounded Derek, but snapped back once again by a pull on his shirt. “Dad.” To the stranger: “What did you do? What _happened_?”

“He’s enchanted,” Derek said. He kept Isaac close. He wanted to remind of what he’d said just last night about their state against the vampire when human. Derek knew that doing so may make them appear more vulnerable, thus opted out of the lesson for now.

Isaac’s father was motionless in his seat with his hands curled around a mug of coffee. He heard none of it. He saw none of it. The man might as well have been dead.

“Come,” the stranger invited, gesturing to the empty seats at the table. “It is day. You must know what that means for me.”

“And yet you’ve had power enough to hypnotize this human,” Derek said. “We’ll stand.”

They smiled. Only Derek hadn’t seen their lips move, and it was odd; unsettling—just as Isaac described.

 

Isaac swallowed. His father was tall and solid, a dominant personality with the physical strength to back it, though was helpless—again—from a trick of the mind.

“Bodhi,” Isaac said. “This is Derek. This territory is his—”

“Ours.”

“—and you’re, well...in it.” 

Isaac looked to the side, not quite over his own shoulder but enough to see Derek peripherally. He cleared his throat and hoped that Bodhi truly couldn’t reach into his mind as he’d seeped into his father’s.

“This is Bodhi,” Isaac continued. “Derek. I’d like to talk with them. Privately.”

“No.”

“I can do it. Like they said: it’s day.”

He turned to face Derek now, knowing Derek would watch his unguarded back. Derek’s eyes had long since gleamed bright red, but now they looked like hot, crimson stars.

“Take my father upstairs. Please.”

And though Derek was rolling his neck and punching his fists deep in his pockets, he agreed to this wretched task.

Isaac watched with folded arms as Derek removed his father, the cold cup of coffee left on the table. He didn’t wait to hear the footsteps reach the second floor when he took a seat adjacent to Bodhi.

“He is Alpha, but he is young,” Bodhi said. “Even younger are you, and yet you are mates. It is curious to me.”

“Well it’s none of your business.”

“It should be someone’s. Yet, little pup, you are right. It is none of my business, nor the business I am here for.”

Isaac wet his lips. He settled back in his seat, wanting to appear like he relaxed.

“It is day,” Bodhi reminded.

“You hypnotized him anyway. I don’t trust you.”

“I did it when I followed him home at night. The magick remains inside him until I retrieve it.”

 

Derek had dropped Isaac’s father on the master bed and left him to go listen in on Isaac from the landing. The words Bodhi spoke had angered his wolf so much that it felt like there were claw marks made in his lungs. His nails bit the railing. He should end it now, go and open the blinds and curtains and invite inside the sacral rays of the sun. But would he be quick enough? Derek wouldn’t risk Isaac’s safety with the chance that he may not.

“So you’ve been here,” Isaac said, “since that night we met. But you didn’t kill him.”

“I thought you might want to do that.”

“Did you hurt him?”

“You will have to ask it exactly of me.”

“Did you _bite_ him?”

Isaac’s question rattled around his fists against the table. Derek imagined the force with which they’d come down. When Derek returned to the kitchen, Isaac was hunched above the table and Bodhi, eerily still, appeared unaffected.

“You have questions,” Bodhi said. “It is natural.”

“Then tell us the business that brought you here,” Derek said.

“I fear that I must answer once I’ve slept. As I have repeatedly stated, it is day.”

Bodhi stood. Their black hair swayed as they moved, as did the draping fabrics that formed their ornate coat. Derek wanted to tear his eyes away. There were spells laced in the very way many vampires looked and while Derek knew that werewolves were immune to vampiric sway, he still was unsure if this _thing_ was what it seemed.

 

Bodhi stopped outside the basement door. Isaac straightened his back as the sudden chill of resentment pricked his skin.

“I ask that you do not lock me down here,” Bodhi said. 

Isaac pointed his gold eyes at Derek. They watched each other as Bodhi descended the stairs.

“Where are you going?” Isaac asked when Derek rushed from his side. He followed, mouth hanging open, the tingle of danger settling in his spine. “Derek. Don’t go down—!”

Isaac stopped. He saw Derek in the basement, tasting the scent of Isaac’s horror and rage, the sweat in the freezer—seeing the freezer’s chains. But when Isaac blinked, Derek was still on this level, at the door. He was locking it, keeping the secrets—and Bodhi—inside.

Isaac dropped his ass back in the chair. He rubbed both hands around his neck and a cracked breath rocketed from his lungs.

“You’re okay,” Derek said, behind Isaac now. His hand snaked around until it dipped past Isaac’s collar, into his shirt.

Isaac slouched in his seat. _I love you,_ he wanted to say as Derek pressed his palm to his heart, weighing its pulse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who else has watched beloved Daniel in Medici? I just finished it over the weekend and am still wild with pride and awe and everything else.
> 
> It’s good to be back here with another chapter! Welcome to the new faces, I’m happy to have you! <3


	24. By Far the Sickest

“When you snatched my shirt earlier. I know—I know you didn’t mean anything by it, that you were just protecting me. And I love that. I love when you do that. Protect me. It’s just...my dad, he...just don’t—you can’t _yank_ me like that. By my shirt. It….”

“I’m sorry,” Derek said.

“You didn’t know.”

“Now I do.”

Because they hadn’t discussed it all—the evil his father had done—and Derek had expected these mistakes. Still, it left him with a bitter aftertaste to know he’d done a thing like that which bothered Isaac.

Derek wanted to ask what else there was, how to keep them dead or deal with them when outside forces triggered. But then he remembered Mr. Lahey left upstairs. And Isaac, he was talking again, to Derek.

“I wasn’t afraid,” Isaac said. Derek knelt beside Isaac’s chair. “Bodhi _bothers_ me, but they don’t _scare_ me. Not like my dad does. Is that…?”

“It’s not.”

Isaac’s blunt teeth pressed his lip.

“But Isaac,” Derek continued, “Sentinels exist to guard; to protect. That includes the humans. Your father’s a human.”

Isaac huffed.

“We owe him the service.”

“I see.”

“Unless you want to do what Bodhi said. What I’ve said.”

“I don’t _want_ to kill my father.”

“Alright. Okay. Hey….” Derek gripped Isaac’s thigh. “It’s okay to be angry, to feel conflicted about him. Do you?”

“I’m pissed. Conflicted. We came here to do this thing, to get it over with, and now I feel so unsatisfied.”

“I know. And that’s okay.”

“Now I still have to carry this around, who you are and where I’ve been, where I’m staying. It doesn’t feel right. He can’t even”—Isaac sighed—“ _hear_ me, I guess. I don’t know what Bodhi’s done, not exactly.”

“We can figure it out. Reverse it.”

“I’m wondering if I even want it reversed. What if he just goes back to how he’s been?”

 

Isaac took awhile to follow Derek upstairs. “He deserves this,” he said when he looked at his father. Yet, down in his heart that felt as though it’d been scooped open, he hated that someone had done this to his parent.

“We have to check him,” Derek said, and he sounded like he was trying to stay indifferent. Trying to be a Sentinel—for Isaac. “See where he’s been bitten. If the damage is bad.”

“Fine.”

“Are you sure? I can do it alone if—”

“No. I don’t want anyone else touching him without me.”

They began with his father’s shirt. He wore a casual button-up, something he likely threw on when all his T’s were used from not doing laundry. Isaac’s lips were drawn into a flat, dry line as he worked his way along the row of buttons.

“Alright,” he said, holding the shirt together. Derek, beside him, stared at Isaac.

Isaac drew apart the flaps of fabric. His father’s chest was unmarked but for its graying mat of hair, which trailed down to his navel, then in his pants. Isaac glanced away. Derek helped him strip the shirt from his father’s arms, leaving the thing discarded on his bed.

“There’s bites on him,” Isaac said. “Like how you bit me. On the waist….”

 

Derek studied the punctures. He didn’t lay his hands upon the man too much, knowing how upsetting this was for Isaac. He was present only to be Isaac’s source of support—to help when it was clear he was invited.

Still, he had to say it, to draw this line with Isaac so he knew, “This is nothing like how I bit you.”

If Isaac hadn’t smelled good then, his scent was ambrosial when Derek touched the spot that’d healed along his waist.

“Get the jeans off,” he said. 

When Mr. Lahey sat undressed, they counted together 22 marks.

“Do they usually feed like this?” Isaac asked, all innocence.

“No. Bodhi must have been starving.”

Isaac shifted back. Derek looked from Isaac to the man with the bitten thighs and waist.

“I know something we can do. It’s just for now, but it’ll work. Buy us some time at least until we get back.”

“Okay. What is it?” Isaac asked.

“You mark him. Mark his body, his bed. Just like you would in the wild.”

“Piss on him.”

“Yes.”

“On my father.”

“Yes.”

“While he’s sitting here. Bitten up. Enchanted.”

“We can’t bring him with us,” Derek said.

“But we can’t just _leave_ him here, soaking in piss!”

“Trust me. Vampires hate this scent. They avoid it all costs, it comes with the territory.”

 

When Isaac unbuttoned his jeans, Derek came to press up behind him.

“What’re you doing?” Isaac asked. A laugh, nearly invisible, colored his voice. “I don’t need help.”

“I thought it’d be fun.”

Isaac shook his head. He laughed again, now full and open and new.

“He deserves this,” Isaac repeated. He relaxed against Derek’s chest as Derek’s hands came around to unzip the jeans.

Together, they reached in Isaac’s boxer briefs. Isaac had meant to dig his own trapped dick out, but Derek handled it first, the semi-erect weight in his palm.

“This turns you on?” Derek asked. His voice was low and scraped by Isaac’s ear.

“You’re touching me, so….”

Derek aimed it.

“Fuck. I’m getting hard.”

“Relax….”

“I can’t. Shit, what if he can see this?”

“He can’t see.”

“Derek—”

“He can’t.”

Isaac pinched shut his eyes. He thought that becoming a beast in The Yard was the wildest thing he’d done, but this was by far the sickest and most erotic. He dared to look again at his father’s bitten body, windless while deciding where he’d mark.

“You wanna be Alpha with me? Share my power? My strength?” All of this whispered in Isaac’s ear. “Mate with me wherever we want? However we choose?”

“Fuck it,” Isaac said, wrapping his hand around Derek’s. He pointed his dick at his father’s bare lap.

“Yeah,” Derek crooned the same time Isaac snapped, “Shit,” the yellow stream jutting successfully out. Isaac couldn’t bite back all the intermittent sounds that came from just how damn delicious this all felt.

When it was done—when Isaac’s face was pink with much emotion—his father’s chin dripped werewolf urine. The bed and carpet both were sopping wet from all the piss Isaac unleashed through his half-hard dick.

 

Derek watched Isaac seal himself up. He took his hand, fragrant with the musk of Isaac’s cock, and scrubbed loose drops of urine on his teeth.

“I saw that,” Isaac said. His gaze, however, was fixed low on his jeans as he shook them out to make room for his nuts, Derek imagined.

“Will you still kiss me?”

Isaac paused before crossing the room to Derek. He grabbed the back of his neck, drawing Derek close, then crushed his mouth to his so he could taste.

Derek felt wild when Isaac released him. _All this in a 16-year-old boy?_ he had to wonder. But Isaac was still a teenager, and teenagers were intense. Namely when it came to the newness of sex.

And there would be plenty of sex quite soon, Derek knew, with both their ruts destined to fall any day now. What would they do? What would Isaac let him do and what would Derek…? Regardless of their union, males were driven to mount and spread seed. What if Isaac asked if he could mount Derek?

In the car, Derek allowed for Isaac to pull him out as he drove the winding roads back to their den. The sounds of Derek’s fat, leaking dick being stroked was the only music they had for the ride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed there’s only five chapters left for Gauze. I decided last night that it’d be best for the arc of this story to end it here soon, as the plans I have in store for Derek, Isaac, Bodhi, and Lydia deserve to be separate from Gauze. Funnily enough, I don’t enjoy writing series when it comes to my work outside of fic, but this has been rather pleasant and succinct for me.
> 
> Also, a good deal of tags have been removed that will instead apply to the unnamed second installment. Blood kink, consensual possession, etc.—all that will return to the tags then.


	25. Underworld

“We need a bigger car,” Isaac said miles later.

“Someone’s missing their bicycle.”

Isaac snorted. “I’m fucking crunched in here.”

“ _You_ , long legs, need a job—and a license—before you can make such demands.”

“I have a job.”

“Oh?” Derek’s brows were high when he glanced at Isaac. “Where?”

“I’m a Sentinel. Like you.”

“Not until you’re 18, you’re not.”

“But you said—”

“ _With time_. That’s what I said.”

Isaac scoffed. If he weren’t so sedated by the scent of Derek’s dick, he’d have more to say on the matter. Instead, he scrubbed his hands along his face, hooking his fingers on his lower teeth.

Derek’s voice changed. “You like it.”

“I always do.”

“You’re becoming more like me. Everyday.”

At The Yard, Isaac helped Derek open the gates. They locked themselves inside and Isaac felt a sudden wildness at the promises these sacred acres dealt. He followed in silence. Derek led them deep into the shade.

“What’s here?” Isaac asked. “What’s gonna help with my father?”

Derek strode several steps before he stopped. He turned to face Isaac, gripped him on the shoulders.

“Isaac.”

Isaac’s expression fell from his face at the gravity now lacing Derek’s voice.

“I’m sorry. Your father is gone.”

 

Derek shifted his feet to keep himself grounded when Isaac moved, the shock of the statement sending him reeling back.

“Bodhi is the serious threat,” Derek said.

_“What?”_

“I felt it. In the house. That same energy I hunted—that got away—it was there.”

“I don’t—I don’t understand. You said—said we could reverse it.”

“I know.”

“You said—I _pissed on him_ thinking it would help while we left him there, with Bodhi, to find this nonexistent cure!”

“And I’m sorry.”

Isaac tore away. “We have to go back.”

“Isaac—”

“We can bring him to the loft and reverse whatever it is, the spell.”

Derek followed Isaac’s rushed pace and grabbed his arms, swinging him back around to face Derek.

“He’s gone. Bodhi fed on his life force. That’s why—Isaac….”

He wrapped a gentle hand around the back of Isaac’s neck, keeping him close as his eyes brimmed with water.

“Isaac, I’m sorry.”

“Why wouldn’t you tell me this back there? We made a game of it, I….”

“I couldn’t risk Bodhi hearing me tell you the truth. Telling you I know what they are, what they’ve done, with you there, unable to protect yourself.”

“But they wouldn’t have hurt—”

 _“No!”_ Derek’s voice rumbled with the wolf. “They’re seducing you.”

“No they’re—”

“Yes. _Yes_ they are, and they’ve been in your house, with your things and your DNA on your toothbrush and your combs, your razors, whatever else you’ve got in there. Take off your clothes.”

Isaac froze, eyes wild.

“Now!”

 

Isaac peeled off his things. Panic spilled through his gut when Derek’s twin lights scanned him in a way that felt different from before. 

“Did they _touch_ you at the cemetery?” Derek asked.

“What? No!”

“Did they get in your mind? Did they give you any gifts, anything that could link you to them later?”

Isaac shook his head. He was spinning.

“Shove your feet in the ground,” Derek said.

“What did they do to me?”

“ _Please_ , Isaac. Do what I say.”

Isaac stomped into the soft soil. It was cold and filled between each of his toes; around his ankles. Derek continued to walk circles around him.

“All born werewolves and those they bite in are assigned a power. A duty. Ours is this. My family’s was this, but they’re gone, it’s just me, and now you. We’ve wasted too much time. _I_ have. You’re inexperienced and untrained and things like Bodhi….”

Derek shook his head. He jerked off his jacket, tossing it aside, and Isaac flexed his toes in the dirt.

He felt open.

And young.

And to blame for Derek’s guilt; his temper.

Derek fell to a crouch. He pulled his gaze from Isaac’s eyes to his ankles. 

“Kneel,” he said. “But keep your feet in the ground, drive them in. Make your body a root in the earth.”

So Isaac did it. He draped his arms on his thighs and swallowed his words, face-to-face with his Alpha. His mate.

“Good.” Derek sighed, as if relieved. “You should start to feel free of them. Feel healed.”

Isaac hung his head. He’d been _stupid_ , so he thought, believing the wicked things Bodhi had told him. He’d believed the beautiful face, the pretty clothes and hair, and even the things he hadn’t seen with his eyes. He blinked. Tears splatted to soil. Derek scrubbed his face and blew out a breath.

 

“None of this is your fault, Isaac.”

“I touched you. In the car. Like this was all fun, some game.”

“I had to get you here. I couldn’t let you go back, that’s _exactly_ what would’ve happened if I’d played this another way.”

Derek continued to draw in the ground. The stick he used to carve a circle of charms around Isaac made a soft, scraping sound with each new character. Once finished, he returned to his place before Isaac, crouching so he could see his face; his eyes.

“You can hate me right now,” Derek said, “but I’m not letting them have you.”

“So he’s dead. My father.”

“Spiritually.”

“But how do—is there no way to fix it?”

“He’s gone. Bodhi drank him out of his body, at least enough to leave him hollow like that. They’re a Shaman. A vampiric one, and this is what they do. They deal with spirits. Prana.” 

Derek took Isaac’s shoulder. He squeezed it.

“I believe he knows what you are. What we are,” Derek continued, “and he’s trying to access your Underworld since you don’t yet have the power to keep it safe.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“And that’s my fault. I thought I was keeping you safe, protecting you somehow since we’re already…. But I should’ve taught you. This is _my_ mess. Not yours.”

 

Isaac’s heart had been kicking since he heard _your father is gone_ , though the soil and the spells Derek laid were slowing its pace. He’d never imagined that being clutched by the earth would heal so much, yet here he was, soothed a great degree.

Now, he pushed his dirty toes in his socks. He drew on his clothes. Together, they opened the gates.

“This Yard,” Derek said, “is an access point to the shared Underworld of the Hale Pack.”

“Like hell,” Isaac said. “Like Hades.”

“Like a realm. A place that holds your guides, plant and animal allies, your primal power. It’s the root of you. Deep inside the earth.”

They returned to the loft. Derek fed Isaac a mushroom after he showered, promising it would help after it hurt.

“Your body can take it,” Derek said when Isaac curled up in their bed, and he kissed Isaac’s hair and back as he knelt beside it.

As time drew near to the end of school, Derek laced up his boots, shrugged on his jacket.

“We need Lydia,” he said when Isaac asked him where he was going.

“But dinner…?”

“We don’t have time for that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s good to be back! I wrote Eremophobia for Starker and it was hard to break away from Pete and Tony until I realized exactly how Gauze will end. Four chapters left—what are your theories?


	26. Everything Glimmered

Lydia wore a little leather jacket over her dress and looked ill-equipped for the occasion. She tipped her head, approaching Derek with an incredulous squint. “Dinner’s at six,” she said. “Why are you here?”

“Hello, Lydia,” Derek forced. Just as he faked the smile. “Good day at school?”

“Save it.”

They traded places, Derek turning to lean away from her car, which he’d blocked at the driver’s side with his body. Derek caught the door when she all but threw it open, perhaps at him—perhaps intending it’d strike him. He snorted at the offense, mild as it was. He’d only threatened her life just last night. Her dress rode up when she bent in the car to toss her books in the back and Derek watched, seeking whatever drew Isaac in.

“So?”

“So…?” Derek’s brow crinkled.

“Why are you here? And without Isaac? The prettier part of”—she gestured over Derek—“whatever the hell you are.”

“He’s _sleeping_. I need you to come with me, something’s wrong and...we need your help.”

To Derek’s surprise, Lydia followed him home. There was no resistance, nothing which said his request had been a bother, and Derek felt a sudden thawing inside.

Outsiders loyal to _pack_ were of undeniable value.

Outsiders loyal to _mate_ : all the more precious.

“Before we go in,” Derek said when they stood at the loft’s sliding door, “I have to ask you to keep an...open mind.”

Lydia’s green eyes popped. He drew back the entrance.

It was quiet, and Derek could smell from the doorway the mess Isaac made. Fresh, fragrant markings, Isaac’s spit, tears, and leather brewed a satisfying aroma for Derek.

“It _reeks_ ,” Lydia said.

“Not to me.”

Derek crouched to find one of his favorite boots chewed through. He sighed, turning it in his hands.

“You can come out, Isaac,” he said. “I’m not upset.”

Lydia peered around as Derek took a seat on the couch. A nest of curls emerged between bed and wall—Isaac’s side—where Isaac had hidden upon their arrival. Derek’s heart skipped at Isaac’s eyes at the edge, gold and curious as they then found Lydia.

He stalked up toward them. Lydia squeaked and plopped beside Derek, backing from Isaac so far, she made her way into Derek’s warm lap.

“He’s okay,” Derek comforted. He watched her hand circle one of his wrists.

Isaac craned toward Lydia, nostrils flared at her throat. He bumped up her jaw with his nose before seeking her cleavage.

“Easy, Isaac,” Derek soothed. He pet through Isaac’s hair and folded his hand around his nape to contain him.

“Why’s he so…?”

“Wild?” Derek offered. “I fed him a special mushroom.”

“A _what_?”

“It’s healing for him. For us. You don’t know the whole story. That’s why you’re here.”

He watched her shrink away from Isaac’s mouth, which was sharp with the lupine teeth and seeking a place to taste on her thigh. Derek gently eased him back with his arm, letting Isaac nip his skin before he could nudge his way up her dress.

“It’s okay,” Derek said with a little laugh. “Lydia. He’s not gonna hurt you.”

And she looked at him—right into him. Derek held her eyes just for a moment before he wrenched his gaze away.

“Pet my mate,” he said, voice changed. Because when was the last time a girl had been in his lap? And how had he forgotten it felt like this?

Lydia licked her glossed lips and reached her hand out to Isaac. He pressed his face to her palm, gave it a nuzzle.

“I thought he was just your beta,” she said. “And why would you _leave_ him here to trip alone? Is this his first time?”

Derek felt the loss when she slid to the floor with Isaac, glaring at Derek as she hugged Isaac’s head.

 

 _“Lydia.”_ Isaac’s laugh was soft. He drew her between his legs and kissed her throat.

“I wasn’t gone long,” Derek said, voice tight. Isaac glanced past Lydia’s arm toward him. “I knew I’d be right back.”

Lydia sighed, rubbing Isaac’s arms when they roped around her. “But still….”

“He’s okay. Trust me. That wasn’t the type of plant humans can eat.”

Isaac slowed when Derek reached to stroke the back of his neck, pinching the skin between two knuckles. 

“You’re probably just starting to feel it, too, aren’t you?” Derek asked.

Isaac nodded. It was true.

“I know. It’s gonna help you align with your gifts. I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you distressed, do you forgive me?”

The sleepy croon was answer enough.

“We should take him outside. It’s better when you’re outside,” Derek said.

At a nearby park with a duck pond and grills, Isaac spread himself on the grass. Everything _glimmered_. Colors throbbed with new and vibrant light, and the lights were spinning throughout the trees—the sky. He knew Lydia sat at one side of him, Derek at the other, and his heart expanded enough to fit them both.

“Bodhi should be here….”

Isaac’s blink was soft. He watched a single cloud devour its neighbor.

“Who’s that?” Lydia asked, likely to Derek. “Bodhi?”

“The problem,” Derek said. His hand laid on Isaac’s chest. “I’m not just a werewolf. I’m what we call a Superlunary Sentinel. I guard portals between this dimension and others, and so will Isaac—with maturity.”

 _“Oh.”_ Lydia gazed down at Isaac. He reached for her face. She obliged him, putting her cheek in his hand. “I’ve never heard of this. Them. The Sentinels.”

“And you wouldn’t have. It’s a wolf thing. A _born_ wolf thing. Like me. And those I give my bite to.”

Isaac sat up then. He could _smell_ Derek’s voice. The scent plugged Isaac utterly full. He listened as Derek shared with Lydia stories of The Threat, from the hunt in the astral to what’d just happened with Bodhi.

“Whatever they did to Isaac’s father,” Derek went on, sympathetic, “I need to know. I need to see if you’ll wail, if his dad is _at all_ still in there. If he can be saved...if he’s still alive in that body, _somehow_ ….”

Lydia nodded. She smoothed her hand through Isaac’s fluffy hair. “Okay. For Isaac, I’ll come.”

“And what about for me?” Derek asked.

“Hmm. I suppose.”

Isaac chuckled. He felt submerged in affection. Even with the weight of the topic amongst them, his soul, it seemed, existed in some other, fluffier place.

“I’m telling you, Derek,” he said, head now in Lydia’s lap, “Bodhi isn’t _bad_. He’s not bad for me.”

“Trust me: the trip is making you feel full of love, it—”

“The trip is how I know what I know.”


	27. Clutching a Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy May Day, Beltane, or whatever keeps your magick burning. ;-)

It was the sense of connectedness Isaac enjoyed most about the plant Derek had fed him, how even the budding flowers felt familiar. He was still in a dream of colors when Derek and Lydia watched him stretch in the back of the car, which looked unusually soft, as did everything.

“Where are we going?” he asked, later getting up from his supine position. He leaned and rested his elbows on the front seats’ edges, looking between the two of them, eyes slacked. For a beat, there was nothing, like neither wanted to speak—like the news would be too grim for Isaac to stomach. Then:

“To your father,” Derek said. No one talked again during the drive.

When Derek parked, Isaac got sluggishly out. He straightened his back and breathed in the day. There was a positive feeling to this, one which smothered the shadow of doom his wolf had sensed from the moment he looked at father, slumped beside Bodhi. Derek strode ahead. His face looked severe enough that Isaac lowered his eyes away from it.

“Isaac,” Derek said when they both reached the door. His voice was as grave as his expression. “We’re mates now. Few things are more important than that.”

Isaac’s belly swooped; he shuffled his feet. Hearing Derek declare it—seeing his earnest regard—comforted Isaac and made him feel sweet. 

“I know. I understand.”

Derek jerked his head down in a nod. Isaac looked back at Lydia as Derek took hold of the broken doorknob and twisted.

 

As Derek stepped inside, he felt that the house had a sinister buzz strumming through it. Isaac and Lydia crammed in behind him. Something creaked upstairs as they shut the door and Derek opened his nose to the air, seeking a hint of what it could be.

“Wait here,” Derek said.

Lydia rushed, “I’m coming with you,” and Derek’s brow crinkled with displeasure.

“Stay,” he said. “With Isaac.”

His tone wouldn’t be challenged, the way it ripped out.

He climbed the stairs. Each step was paired with a snap or a twist as his features distorted, merging the wolf with the man, presenting the lupine beast.

Isaac’s piss markings were louder up here, announcing the blatant boundary of his territory. Derek liked that. Pleasure sparked in his gut and his nostrils flared, but he saw that Mr. Lahey was gone when he peered in the bedroom he and Isaac had left him.

A sensation crossed Derek’s back, like someone had passed him. He whipped around, a rumble in his throat, but there was nothing. Pointing his ear to the small stretch of hallway ahead of him, he listened for movement, but heard instead a shrill wail from Lydia.

Derek’s eyes blew open; he covered his ears. Downstairs, Isaac was whimpering, as he, too, was sensitive to the vibration which carried from Lydia, and Derek yelled for Isaac to block his ears, also. Then it stopped. Derek kept his hands around his head, hesitant as he straightened his back.

“Isaac? Lydia?” He staggered toward the railing. “What happened?”

Derek met the gazes of both bewildered teens. Isaac rubbed his ears; his hair. There was a grimace on his face which Derek sought to extinguish. He hated seeing his mate in—

“Derek!”

A shove from behind sent Derek tumbling down the stairs. He knocked into the wall. It cracked upon impact.

 

Isaac looked in horror at his father’s swaying body upstairs. His arm flew out across Lydia, knocking her behind him as Derek scrambled to get to Isaac’s side.

“I thought he was empty,” Isaac snapped out. “I thought he was _hollow_.”

Derek’s face crumpled. His nose—already drawn back—flared with apparent agitation. They watched as Mr. Lahey descended. There was something wicked and disarrayed about him. He certainly _moved_ like there was still a soul inside his body, but the quality of it confused Isaac’s senses. He shifted away, walking to the side with Derek and Lydia, her hand in the back of his shirt and Isaac’s clawed, curled into fists.

“What do we do?” Isaac asked. They backed into the kitchen as Lahey pursued them. _“Derek?”_

“I haven’t gotten that far,” the Alpha spit out.

And he wouldn’t reach any further, for Isaac’s father roared as he lurched for Derek.

At the same time, Lydia screamed. She waved her hands and sent the man blowing back.

Derek and Isaac turned together to look at her. “That helps,” Derek said. The three of them circled around the dining table.

Lydia’s attack didn’t yield lasting results. Mr. Lahey floated up to his feet. He charged toward them now with foam at his eyes and lips, a yellowish froth which certainly wasn’t human.

Isaac saw Derek tense, preparing his body for impact. He pictured Derek leaping out to defend them. In his skull, a series of bloodied images tumbled about one another, pouring into Isaac a world of fear.

It wasn’t his father Isaac would weep into his pillows for, whose death would rob Isaac of appetite. He wouldn’t be sick with sadness at the loss of a violent man—a man whom he shared blood with but had hurt him. But Derek. Isaac would curl in their bed and cry for him, he would miss meals for him, abandon his health and healing for him if he perished. All Isaac knew as his father knocked the chairs was that Derek had chewed his heart from his chest and consumed it.

He scowled as bones snapped in his spine; his jaw. The semi-transformation twisted his face. Now, he and Derek matched in the way their visages snarled, how the wolves peered out of them both, frightening and wild.

Isaac launched himself over the table. He tackled his father’s body to the floor.

They slid.

 

Derek called out to Isaac, frozen in contemplation as he watched his mate take down his own parent. They tangled around on the floor, nasty snarls between them. Blood spurted up, though Derek knew not from whom. When the eldest Lahey kicked Isaac and Isaac’s back and head bashed through the railing, Derek leaped over the table, landing on splayed hands and toes. He rushed Mr. Lahey. They cracked into the wall opposite Isaac. There was blood on wood and paint, and it all smelled the same.

Derek snarled when inhuman strength sent him sailing. Bits of debris sprinkled into his hair. He shoved up to his feet and saw as Isaac rocketed past, so quick in his half-human form, a blur in the hall.

Isaac was putting his claws into his father just as his father was landing blows on Isaac’s audibly breaking ribs and it was ugly. When a fist bolted up under Isaac’s chin to knock his teeth through his tongue, Derek roared. Isaac was flung to the floor like some used rag.

Mr. Lahey towered over Isaac. Slime and froth swung from his lips. Derek watched the world slow to an imperceptible crawl as Isaac’s father’s foot raised to come crashing down.

Lahey jerked then. His leg hung limp just above Isaac’s chest before he stumbled. Behind him, Bodhi stood, clutching a heart.

The muscle was black and oily and let off smoke. A similar essence drained from the hole that’d been made in Lahey’s back, which Derek watched Bodhi breathe up into their nose. When all of that was done and Bodhi looked full of the food, Isaac’s father turned to so much ash.

 

Grimacing, unable to cognize it, Isaac stared at the pile on the floor. Some of his father was speckled at the bottom of Isaac’s pants and on his shoes. He blinked. He looked up at Bodhi.

“I was going to keep my distance,” they said, lowering into a crouch at Isaac’s feet. They didn’t turn their head when Derek approached.

“And why didn’t you?” Derek asked. His voice was unkind. Isaac winced at the way it scraped against Bodhi.

“Because I am his.”

Isaac blanched.

“Brought into this realm through the vehicle of his own body,” Bodhi continued.

“I don’t believe you,” Derek said at the same time Lydia asked, “What’s he _mean_?”

“I am of Isaac’s Underworld. An ally. I was going to keep my distance,” Bodhi repeated, “and nestle myself in the family’s cemetery, but something broke into this world, and I smelt it. It latched to this man”—their eyes flicked over the ashes—“which I did attempt to free him of. No amount of sucking it out sufficed. So you see, Isaac, we are quite bound, you and I. You wanted power—to protect yourself—and I came.”

Isaac shifted where he laid propped up on his forearms, the fading mushroom and chemicals flooding his body from the fight all making him soft. He didn’t know what to make of what Bodhi said, but he believed them. He felt the words were true and looked toward Derek.

Derek, however, didn’t look so satisfied. He stomped toward Bodhi, who made no attempt to thwart the older wolf, and Isaac barked at Derek to stop where he was.

“I don’t believe them,” Derek said. His claws drove into the back of Bodhi’s neck.

There were pictures. Isaac witnessed Bodhi in his mind, though the scenes felt like they were being shared through the bond he had with Derek. A series of memories swept into Isaac from the core of his mate until Derek’s hand flew back and he crashed into furniture.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. I can’t convey how satisfying it was to write this chapter and return to characters I thought I’d grown tired of. Holding in Bodhi’s true identity _all this fucking time_ was no easy thing.


	28. Many Violent Lines

“Trust me.” Isaac’s voice was hushed but urgent. “They’re not gonna hurt me. Just let me talked to them, Derek. In private.”

Derek saw—and felt—the desperation. It was as honest as what he’d dug out of Bodhi. Yet, he couldn’t accept it. He couldn’t trust the truth because it scared him.

Isaac got to his knees between Derek’s legs. On the couch where Derek was sitting, he leaned to come closer to Isaac’s face.

“I don’t like it,” Derek said.

“I know.”

“I don’t like what they represent. What they _do_.”

“But they’re from my Underworld. They’re _good_.”

“Everything in someone’s personal Underworld isn’t supposed to be there, Isaac. But at the same time,” Derek added, diffusing Isaac’s anger before it expanded, “the Underworld isn’t”—he gestured around them—“this.” He sighed. “I don’t want you to hurt, not anymore than you already have. I want you to be _careful_. He wants to talk to you in the basement, for fuck’s sake. The basement. Where you were abused.”

Isaac gave Derek a wry smile. “I was abused all over this house. It’s—I’m okay.”

“Isaac….”

“I am. I promise.”

Derek shook his head, but when Isaac grabbed it and brought them together so their lips could press, he let the heat drain languidly out of him.

“I’m gonna go talk to them, and then I’ll be back, and we can get Lydia and do dinner like we planned. Just...trust me.”

Derek sighed. He squeezed Isaac’s wrists as his mouth was pressed again with several kisses.

“At least let me walk you to the basement,” Derek said.

“Okay.”

Isaac drew Derek up on his feet as he stood. When they came to the basement door, Bodhi’s gaze clamped onto Derek’s.

“I’ll be right up here with Lydia,” Derek said. He didn’t break contact with Bodhi as he announced it.

 

Bodhi shifted aside, clearing the path for Isaac to descend into the basement—into hell. Isaac’s fists curled at his sides. Each step creaked beneath his weight, and while he felt the essence of Bodhi press against his back, they didn’t make a sound as they followed.

The door clicked shut behind them. Isaac froze three stairs from the floor.

“I’m claustrophobic,” Isaac said in a strict voice. His mouth still tasted of blood. His tongue throbbed.

“I know everything about you. This is safe.”

“Then why did you say that to me at the cemetery? That you were inside my dad’s mind, and that’s how you saw what he did to me?”

Isaac steadied himself. He hadn’t yet looked at the freezer. Even so, he could see the hungry mouth of it left open.

Bodhi’s breath touched Isaac’s neck. “Go.”

The solidity of the command nudged Isaac forward.

It was dark. A lone bulb of light glowed at the center of the ceiling, which cast ominous shadows about the room. Isaac’s lips quivered. His throat was scorched with emotion; he turned away.

“I don’t like this idea.”

“I know it frightens you. I know that in some ways, I frighten you. This will change. Please. Come,” Bodhi said, and Isaac looked up and he saw that their eyes were silver.

Isaac felt his way toward the freezer. Touching it—even as he stood safely outside—afflicted his belly with bubbles. Bodhi joined him at the prison at once. The silky way they moved looked off in this light and Isaac turned his attention away, to the box.

“You spent many punishments in this, and now it is just a thing.”

Isaac swallowed. Bodhi was silent. Their hair swung in such delicious waves, even here where the darkness of the basement matched its shade. Isaac thought of the last time he’d been a victim of this space, how he feasted on bacon after—how Derek had come to him. So long ago that felt, though only mere weeks. He chanced another look up at Bodhi.

“You’re tall,” Isaac said.

Bodhi hummed.

“I didn’t realize it before. I mean, I did, I knew, but so many other things….” A breath rattled out. “You have a strange...way.”

“I am what you asked for. Nothing less. Nothing more. I am simple. I require simple things.”

“Like what?”

“Food.”

The single syllable jolted Isaac’s gut.

“You weren’t ready to know me when we met at the cemetery. That is why I said what I did. But you know me now. You are ready to have me fully.”

Isaac was still, his hands curved around the edge of the freezer as he digested the importance of Bodhi’s words. He thought of Derek, if Derek would ever accept Bodhi’s position in Isaac’s life. _Can they get along?_ Isaac wondered. Being with Bodhi like this emboldened Isaac in a way he couldn’t explain. He wanted to be able to share these feelings with Derek without Derek being hurt or offended.

“I want you to reach in the freezer; feel the lifelessness of the metal.”

Unsure, Isaac met Bodhi’s eyes.

“It is safe.”

Isaac swallowed a lump. He leaned in. His fingers brushed the many violent lines he’d carved into it.

“Before I had claws,” Isaac said, blood boiling under his cheeks, “I would scratch it. Inside. That’s where most of these marks came from.”

“I touched them.”

“It was…. I don’t know why he ever started doing it. What made him hate me so much.”

“He hated himself.”

Unsettled, Isaac withdrew and scrubbed his hands on his jeans. In the dark, Bodhi’s eyes beamed over him.

 

Derek was seated beside Lydia at the table where Isaac had consumed countless meals. Lydia had her hand on his nape and played with his hair every so often, letting him sort himself in silence. He hadn’t said a word since the basement door shut, nor could he hear Bodhi and Isaac. His heart was a dying fish flopping inside his ribs and he shut his eyes as if to flee that discomfort.

He wanted to go, take Isaac and Lydia home and leave Bodhi back here, burn the house down with the creature still in it. It didn’t matter to Derek that he saw the attestation of Bodhi’s words. For all he knew, Bodhi had deceived them. He had the power to do it, after all.

 _Or I am just jealous?_ Derek kept coming back to. Because if Bodhi _were_ indeed a sincere and sacred existence, he would take Derek’s place in several ways. Teaching Isaac much of his power would fall in the hands of this stranger, and Derek wanted…. He was Isaac’s _Alpha_.

“You know what pisses me off most about Bodhi?” Derek asked, schooling the emotions in his voice. “I’ve never seen anyone so….”

“Beautiful?”

Derek scowled at the word.

 

Isaac dashed his fist across his eyes. He spun from the freezer, feeling Bodhi’s looming shadow cover him.

“I feel like part of _me_ is hollow,” he said. “Like a hole is just... _gaping_ inside me, like he took me with him, like he _killed_ me.”

“Little one. That is so not the case. Turn. Face me.”

Isaac did, if only to keep from heading too deep in the dark.

“Let me replenish it.”

“What…?”

“I would share my blood with you, and take from you, if it were permitted.”

Isaac shrank back just some. Bodhi took a step to keep them close. Their eyes were almost alien how they radiated light large enough to brighten the small space between them.

“I’m not—Derek wouldn’t like it,” Isaac said.

“No. But you will want to. In time.”

When they emerged from the basement, Derek’s chair spilled over from the carelessness in which he got up. Isaac’s eyes went wide at the clatter. He traded a look with Lydia, who blew out a breath through her freshly-glossed lips.

“They’re gonna stay here,” Isaac said. “Until nightfall.”

“And then?” Derek’s expression was troubled, no matter how he attempted to seem in control.

“We’re staying, too,” Isaac told him. “For dinner. That was the plan, that’s still the plan. Isn’t it? We can’t exactly go to Lydia’s house _like this_.”

Derek and Isaac peered down at their own clothes. Isaac was bloodied and ripped, from his fabrics to his skin, and Derek looked just as bad—even worse beside an untouched Lydia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Derek. But how refreshing is it to see him openly showing his feelings for Isaac?
> 
> One more chapter! I aim to wrap this up with a sweet conclusion. <3


	29. Primal Games

It was a good thing Isaac still had some clothes up in his room. He and Derek would need them after they showered. Isaac stood up from the table following several minutes of contemplating what would be ordered for dinner from some app.

“I’ll come help,” Derek offered when Isaac winced.

“No.” Isaac caught himself against the wall. “I’ve got it. Stay with Lydia, please.”

He dragged up the stairs. Bodhi, Derek, and Lydia stayed behind to wait for the food and mingle in unfamiliar silence.

There were bruises blooming on both sides of his torso where his father had beaten his ribs. He was feeling them now, along with everything else he’d endured in the fight. A multitude of highs still drained from his body. Grimacing, he got off the shirt; the jeans.

He stood bare in the mirror and gazed at himself. Scratches were on him and skin was scraped off and there was a nasty sensation, like he was hungover. He hated this bathroom, the basement, the kitchen, and he hated this day. And yet, he was resigned. There was nothing left to do but wash it all off.

Derek was sitting on the bottom stairs when Isaac at last emerged. He stood as Isaac descended, searching Isaac all over, his lips tugged down.

“How bad is it?”

Isaac sighed from the effort it took to move. “Just fractures,” he said, standing still as Derek lifted his shirt, inspecting him. He let Derek touch where he wanted, knowing he needed this moment. It had to be hard to sit by and let Bodhi be here.

“I’m fine,” Isaac said, low, into Derek’s kiss. “Go wash your ass so we can all eat together when the food gets here.”

 

Derek didn’t enjoy sharing the table with Bodhi, nor did he appreciate that Bodhi was more attentive to Isaac than the rest, but as the four of them sat together, a haunting wave of nostalgia overcame him.

He watched Lydia scrape plain basmati rice and butter chicken onto her plate, and he saw Isaac dipping his naan in warm lentil soup. The rich scents and assembly of creatures gathering for a meal reminded Derek of the family he’d lost. And it was good that the kids were so consumed with shoving their mouths with spice and meat, because he absolutely wasn’t. His eyes were too wet; his throat was too closed to partake.

When Derek got up and excused himself, Isaac dropped his fork to follow. Yet, it wasn’t Isaac who found him coming apart in the living room.

Derek blinked as Bodhi sat on the coffee table. Tears wet his beard. His elbows dug in his thighs and his back pulsed where he’d crashed into things. He tightened his fists, which pressed against his lips, and watched Bodhi rest their arms on their legs.

They sat together without one vocal exchange. Derek didn’t know why, but it made him feel comforted. This stranger was here, likely after stopping Isaac from leaving his dinner plate, offering only a presence of peace. Derek didn’t understand it. He didn’t understand _them_ , how they met Derek’s eyes and seemed like they _knew_.

Peering down, he saw the hand Bodhi drove through Isaac’s father. Their many golden rings had black stains and their fingernails could stand a scrub in the sink. But the smell. Their scent was like the last breath in a body, a fresh grave plugged with the newly dead.

Derek mopped his face dry with Isaac’s borrowed shirt and he stood. Bodhi shifted to follow.

 

Later, when dinner was finished—though Bodhi had only drank soup, and not much of it—Isaac slouched in his seat and rubbed his belly.

“I guess this is what it’s like,” he said, quiet, gaze soft. “Pack.”

Everyone looked at each other. No one agreed or disagreed with the sentiment.

 

“When will I see you again?” Derek heard Isaac ask of Bodhi. The longing in Isaac’s voice made Derek ache. Derek didn’t hear Bodhi’s answer when they gave it, nor did he see when they vanished from the hallway.

They went back to the loft, reconnecting Lydia with her car. Isaac towered over her and sighed.

“Big day,” he said.

“Yup.”

“You did good. I mean, with the wind thing.”

She nodded. He nodded. Derek shook his head at his mate’s inexperience.

“I, um,” Lydia began after a pause. “I’m sorry. About your dad. You’re _good_ , Isaac. You deserve good people. Never forget that.”

She turned to get in her car. Isaac held open the door for her and swung it shut once she settled inside.

“Thank you,” he said. He backed away as she reversed from her spot.

“Oh!” Lydia braked, peering out the window. “You got on the lacrosse team. They posted it earlier, but since _someone_ decided to hook school….”

Isaac laughed. He turned his head, looked over his shoulder at Derek. Behind him, Derek couldn’t reign in his smile.

 

They laid in bed together, warm and full and sore, the lights off and the moon floating in through the windows.

“I’m proud of you.” Derek’s ragged voice split into the quiet.

“Even though you didn’t want me to join the team?”

“I’m proud of _you_ , Isaac. Everything about you.”

Isaac became all the warmer.

“Watching you today, after so little training…. You have _instincts_. You have loyalty to pack and you’re brave. I don’t know anyone else who could’ve done that. Who could’ve witnessed _that_.”

Isaac turned his emerald in the moonlight. He thought of Derek’s words and the emotions he experienced at the table, before and after his father was bested by Bodhi.

“We want the same things,” Isaac said.

“And what’s that?”

“Love. A family.” Isaac dropped his hand and exhaled hard. “I shouldn’t feel powerful after this, but I do. I feel...new. Is that...wrong?”

Derek pushed up on his forearms and gazed down at Isaac. Isaac knew that Derek could see—and feel—the worry; the guilt. The entire short time they’d known each other had been riddled with primal games that Isaac, until this moment, felt that he’d been losing. 

“You belong to yourself now, Isaac,” Derek said, the thickest thread of reverence in his voice. “There’s nothing—not even me—more right than that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We made it! And _they_ made it! It’s been a wild eight months with this fic. My feelings about it have vacillated more than I can say. Gauze is my first piece since returning to the fanfic scene and while there was a point I thought, “This has become a goddamn mess,” and, “I don’t know when I’ll ever finish this,” I always found myself pleased to sink back into the characters and their story with each new chapter.
> 
> Isaac is my favorite character from Teen Wolf, and following him—in no particular order—is Derek, Chris, and Lydia. When establishing Gauze, I knew I wanted to play out my fantasy of what Derek and Isaac could’ve been, and that I wanted Isaac to receive a more complete character arc that allowed him an avenue for closure about his abuse and his dad. I didn’t like how his abuse continued to be poked at, namely by Stiles, which actually stripped away some of my fondness for him. I didn’t like that he was just ushered away with a new father figure in Chris and that we didn’t get to see him _heal_ from everything, including the death of his girlfriend. I wanted to create a Derek who was less **sour** and more open to feeling and communicating and letting others in; things his own trauma had disallowed. But then plot began to burgeon—because apparently, I have an issue with abandoning plot—and the story began to stretch beyond my intentions. I’m happy I was able to tie it all up and that it incorporated the supernatural messiness of the show.
> 
> Writing a story about an unpopular pairing can be lonely. I don’t require community and engagement to keep a story going, but I feel that community and engagement are the _bedrock_ of fandom. Piling together fanning with fellow lovers of the same characters, ships, and situations really fucking makes the heart expand. It’s joyful and playful and I didn’t realize I missed it, being the loner I am, but I have and I do. Thank you so much to everyone who read this, to everyone who dropped a kudo, a comment, or shared.
> 
> A very special thank you to my eternally supportive and motivating friend, Pencilsofcolor, whose writing I’ve loved for many years now, the talented Strangeredlantern, who shares my sweet love for our baby Isaac and has been such a supportive presence, and Vayo, who’s expressed such love for Gauze and unlikely Isaac pairings all the way from Seoul and was an instrumental boost in why I was able to fire off the final three chapters this week. Believe you me, I didn’t have any desire to finish this fic as of two weeks ago and am also recovering from a second surgery. That I did complete it makes me proud of my ability to see things through in a way that makes sense and is pleasing. Whew.
> 
> I’m not sure when the next installment of the Convalescence series will begin. I do believe I need a short break from it. Also, I can only handle writing two fics at a time, and I have a whole Starker series going and plan to begin a short Chris/Isaac fic called Oenomel, inspired _just a little_ by God’s Own Country, which I’ve watched many times since it’s Netflix release. There, Chris will come across a gritty, aged-up Isaac who won’t stop eating his sheep, and the rest is for you to find out, if you wish. ;-)
> 
> This has gone on long enough. Thank you, again, so much. Subscribe to me if you’d like to keep up, and if you know of any beautiful Isaac fics that don’t have him paired with Scott or Stiles, feel free to share! <3


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